Trying Not To Lose My Sanity in this Stupid Fantasy World
by Konran.Shita
Summary: Tsukiyo Nakano is your sort of average boy who works 8 hours along with his brother to help pays bills with his mom, when he suddenly dies from a gunshot, he's under the assumption that his life is over, until a certain Silver haired goddess gives him another chance. This is sort of a crossover, I guess. Borrowing a lot of stuff from DMC series.
1. Beginnings, Endings and Opportunities

_**Edited by: Nakaru Uzumaki**_

 _My Name is Tsukiyo Nakano, I was two weeks away from my eighteenth birthday when I died. My house was broken into one night when my mother and I were asleep, though how things came to that is a pretty long story…_

 _When I was nine, both my parents decided to divorce. It wasn't because of money problems or cheating or anything like that, it was simply because they fell out of love. So one day, my father decided to leave my mother and left. I haven't heard from him since. Although it wasn't an overly dramatic separation, it still hurt to see someone I looked up to just walk out of my life like that, and the pain only grows when I'm reminded of him._

 _Because of his decision to leave, it was up to my mother to provide for my brother and I and work long hours to pay the bills. Sometimes she'd overwork herself and become bedridden for the day, so we would have to take care of her by doing the little things to help her around the house. Over the years the little stuff would turn into general house work like cooking dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning the house among other things._

 _When I finally turned fifteen, I managed to get myself a job as a clerk in a gas station. Both my brother and I decided we would do everything in our power to ease the stress of paying the bills on her own. Although our mother was happy about this, she said that she'd rather have me and my brother enjoy our youths rather than work, but we were too stubborn to listen._

 _I worked a lot of different jobs in the summer ranging from customer service to garbage men and sometimes even construction. It was different, and I managed to build up some muscle, leaving me to be stronger than most of the students in my grade. As the years passed, working was almost second nature, I worked an eight-hour shift since I was still considered a minor while my older brother worked the graveyard shift from eleven to eight._

 _Since my birthday was coming up, my mother decided to get me an early birthday present, it was a small necklace with a red gem having a small dragon coiling around it; guarding it(1). The cost immediately took priority in my mind when I saw its high quality, but she told me not to worry about it and enjoy it. Thinking back that might've been her way of saying thank you for working so hard since my brother who turned eighteen two years ago got the same necklace design, only in green. I was happy to have her appreciation in the form of the necklace, so I chose to wear it everyday. She said it was my birthstone, Garnet, while my brother got Emerald. Everything was nice and were content, happy even._

 _And then it happened._

 _That day, my mother overworked herself again and was bedridden, so I called my school to let them know what I'd be doing, and was given the greenlight to stay home. For the entire day, I took care of my mom, and nothing seemed even the least bit out of place. When night fell and the moon hung brilliantly in the night sky, we went to sleep only to hear a heavy thud in the living room three hours later. There were a trio of thugs who broke into our house, two combing the building while one stayed outside to scout for cops and alarmed neighbors. I wasn't able to move my mom for fear of worsening her condition, so I told her what was happening while I went for my phone on the nightstand, but just when my fingers glanced over our saving grace, we both heard steps from the hallway._

 _She told me to hide._

 _But… I couldn't. I didn't want her to get hurt for the sake of my own self being, but she begged me and one look at her face left me with no other options and I jumped into the closet in the corner of the room. Since she was sluggish from being bedridden she barely managed to wiggle her way under her bed when the intruders barged in. They seemed to know what they were doing by the looks of things since they checked every inch of the room. They hadn't found me by the time one of them reached under the bed and dragged my mother out, tears streaming down her face all the while. Seeing her caught, I panicked and tried to fight the burglars empty handed._

 _Despite what happened next, I still don't regret my decision._

 _They were surprised to see me leap from the closet and the one closest to me swung his iron bat at my head, nearly knocking me out cold on the spot. It was one of the worst pains I'd ever felt in my life. My mother was screaming at the top of her lungs at this point, loud enough to alert the neighbors. The intruders immediately moved to silence her, one of them pulling out something that nearly killed me just from having it so close to her. From my angle on the floor, I could see the pistol's simplistic western design and without even thinking, I ran towards them, immediately snatching the wrist of the thug brandishing the firearm. Moments of me struggling to point the gun away from my mother went on only for it to fire accidentally, I wasn't entirely sure where I was shot, but the moment it went off my vision went dark in a split second._

"Excuse me."

A voice rang out through the dark.

"Young man? Excuse me."

Wait, is it calling for me?

My eyes shot open in an instant and they immediately focused on the silver haired woman dressed in an elegant purple and white dress sitting before me. A sense of regality washed over me as I stared at the woman in purple and white but those thoughts were cancelled out from her light smile and the type of dress she was wearing. It was almost as if she jumped out of some fantasy game.

I glanced around, quickly realizing that there wasn't anything in the void surrounding me other than the two of us and the chairs we sat on.

What the hell's going on? I doubt drugs would be able to kick in this hard…

My thoughts were quickly interrupted when the girl before me cleared her throat to gain my attention.

"This will be hard for you to understand, but please stay calm, okay?"

In a situation like this, calm would be the last thing that I could even hope to be, but I still tried regardless.

"I can try, but no promises"

She sighed.

"Yes, well… the thing is", another sigh. "You're dead."

She's joking.

"Okay", a dry laugh fled past my lips. "Very funny. Now tell me what's really going on."

She didn't dare look me in the eye at the sound of my denial.

Hold up, this is a joke right? It has to be…

 _RIGHT?_

I started to panic, and I could feel myself begin to hyperventilate. At the sound of my heavy breathing, however, the woman looked up at me, worry splashed across her visage. "Hey, hey, hey! I told you to stay calm, didn't I? Listen, I'm going to explain everything, okay?"

Her words calmed me a bit and I managed to even out my breathing. Of course my heart was still beating a thousand beats a second, but I had to listen since I didn't have any idea on what to do next. Slowly, so as to not rile me again, she started by asking for my name and age. I realized she probably already knew who I was, she just had me reciting basic information about myself to get me to calm down.

"My name is Tsukiyo Nakano and I'm seventeen years old. I was born in Fukuoka, Japan and live with my older brother and… my… mother… "

I could feel tears well up in the corner of my eyes when the memories all came flooding back along with s searing pain that filled my skull, it felt as if a bullet just...

The silver-haired girl before me took on a heartbroken look when she saw a sob rock my body, "I know what happened since I watched it, but it still hurts to remember."

What?

I shot up out of my chair, confused and angry, "If you saw it then why didn't you do anything?!"

Frantic, the woman quickly apologized, "No, no! I didn't mean it like that! What I meant was, I was able to watch, but I couldn't do anything because of my role."

"Your role?", confusion and curiosity kicked anger right out the door.

"Yep!", she beamed, trying to lighten the mood. "As you can see, it looks like we're in the middle of nowhere, right?"

She didn't give me a chance to answer the question.

"We are essentially in what would be called Purgatory.", My eyes widened at the bold statement. "My job is to let people pass on to the afterlife. So you are here since you died. You have the choice to either pass on to heaven or be reincarnated as a newborn."

"Heaven huh?" I asked, bewildered. I wasn't someone who particularly believed in the concept of religion. I felt a little annoyed, everything I didn't believe in was suddenly becoming true. Man would I be a laughing stock up there.

Then a thought flashed through my head and I silently kicked myself for having forgotten about her, "Hey, is my mom okay?" I asked, pleading with whatever gods I now knew existed that she was okay.

"Don't worry, your mother is safe. Those people froze in shock at the sight of your dead body since they had no intention of killing anyone, so some neighbors managed to break in and pin them down before the authorities arrived."

I sighed with a small smile on my face at the good news.

"Emotionally, however…" She trailed off, struggling to continue until she saw the look on my face urging her to continue. "Not so good. As of right now, she's crying hysterically while holding your bloody head..."

"It's that bad, huh?", I asked

She sighed again before answering, "Yeah it really is, First responders don't even need paramedics check for a sign of life..."

I started to stare blankly at the checkerboard pattern ground that I was on as I started to take all the information in, a sad smile replaced the relieved one before I noticed that I still had on the necklace that I got for my birthday

"Well, as long as she's safe, I guess I don't really care what happens to me. Hey", I looked up at her. "You never gave me your name, did you? Since this might be my last conversation before I move on, I'd like to know who I spoke to in Purgatory."

She smiled warmly and declared, "My name is Eris, and I am a goddess. But, if you don't care where you go, how about we add another option?"

Suspicion laced my next words, "Another option?"

(note: this chapter has been revised to make up for my pretty shit writing ability back in June (as of right now, I'm typing this in Dec. 7) when I made this first chapter. Revisions are credited to Nakuru Uzumaki with some slight edits of my own)

Reference 1: . /pin/5840674495667413/


	2. Angels, Demons, and a Demon Lord?

"Another Option…"

I got suspicious, what's she playing at….

"Explain" I said sternly

"Well, whenever a person dies they have the choice to go to heaven or be reborn, some take one of the choices while other don't like either whatsoever, so what can be made as a compromise is going to a different world" She said as she still has that warm expression

"The type of world that you would go to, if you took the chance, would be a land of living fantasies. Where magic actually exists along with angels, demons, and monsters just like in video games"

I didn't buy any of this, "show me, part of me wants to believe you since you are a goddess, but my cynicalism just thinks it might be the opposite"

Eris, I think was her name, said "I wish i could show you, but I don't possess powers like that to do so, so you're going to have to take my word for it, sorry" She said sort of apologetic.

oh great, now Logic and Emotion are fighting it out in my brain…

 _Logic: Bullshit, THIS SMELLS LIKE BULLSHIT!_

 _Emotion: I wouldn't think so, she doesn't seem to be the type of person to something like backstab us, we should at least hear her out…_

 _Logic: Fuck that! The moment we trust her is the moment we screw ourselves!_

 _Self: alright, both of you shut up, i'm going to make an irrational decision if you don't shut up, ok?_

 _Emotion and Logic: ..._

 _Self: good…_

"Is there anything else i should know, If i do take the second chance? Any catch of that sort?"

Eris, looked sort of uneasy when I said that, and replied "Well, there is one drawback to this…"

 _Logic_ _: HA! FUCKING KNEW IT!_

 _Self: Logic, I will go fucking ballistic if you talk one more time, fuck off!_

"What's the catch…" I said emotionless, whenever something is too good to be true, there's always a catch, I've already had my fair share of it back when I was alive…

"The moment you get transported to the world, you will have to face against the Demon Lord that is terrorizing the world…" She said unhesitantly

I blinked multiple times like that one meme I would send to my brother whenever he said something stupid(1), it was different this time because i really, like REALLY didn't expect this

"Give me one moment please, I need some time to not go ape shit…" I said in a voice low enough for her to hear me

"um...sure" she said as if she was looking at some insane person from an Asylum

A demon lord, of all the things to be out there, aliens, dragons, a fucking apocolypse, it had to be a demon lord. Who In their right mind would go to a dangerous and shady place like that…..probably me….yeah..no doubt

I Inhaled deeply and exhaled, and gave Eris my answer…."why not…"

Eris looked at me, and smiled warmly again "Alright then, let me get the catalog for you"

Wait, a catalog, like those magazines you find in the store to find other stuff?

To my (thankful) surprise it wasn't a catalog like a magazine, but a catalog like an old book almost turned to wrags because of age and decomposing paper...

Eris then told me "Whenever people choose to go to the fantasy world, we give them a chance to be able to have one cheat-like item at their disposal to go with them to the fantasy world, well an item or a person at this point…" she then started to look off to the side and say in exhausted voice, "one of the last people to go to the fantasy world managed to have his cheat-item be my senpai, and because of that most of her work was pushed onto me, well it's not like im not used to it…" she then said in the tone of voice that looked like she forgot what she just said earlier "oh, and if it's something off a video game or manga those will be usable too, just need an understanding of what it is to create it…"

Video game too huh, I then got a pretty stupid idea that had a small chance of paying off in the long run.

I then said "Can I have a demon arm then?"

It was her turn to be confused beyond relief "huh?" was all she said just as confused as I was before not losing my shit.

Yup, this was probably the stupidest thing I've said….no wait, there were worse…

I doubt that this was something that was at least 1% possible, because who goes to a god/goddess and asks for divine powers from a devil?

It like asking a NEET to give me his resume to copy it for work…

Still confused in place, a blinding light came from behind the chair thay Eris was sitting on, when the light show was over what took its place was an older gentlemen that seems to be in his late 60's in what looks to be in a pretty noble/Gentlemanly outfit and looked over to me.

I fucked up didn't I…..well shit, there goes my second chance. On the outside i was pretty calm, but on the inside, i was both laughing hysterically on how I fucked up so badly, and absolutely terrified that I fucked up so badly where whats looks to be a veteran officer coming to purge me because of my request...

The Gentleman then spoke in a voice that easily expressed grit, but smoothness, "Eris….grant his wish, and give him another."

…..ok what the fuck is actually going on…

Eris, after recovering from her shock of my request and the old man's words, then asked "Are you sure Mr. Vice President, surely this can't be prohib-"

"Don't worry, This was the request from the council. Permission is granted, what this boy did for most of his life is the most heartwarming and most just thing us gods has ever seen in hundreds of years. Consider yourself beyond lucky young man, only 6 of countless people have this blessing, yourself included" He then left in the same blinding light without taking a second look.

After that dramatic encounter with what assumed to be the Vice President of whatever Eris does as a Goddess, Eris then looked at me where she looks beyond exhausted asking "Ok, s-so about your...demon arm…"

oh boy, this'll be hard to explain…

"Devil May Cry 4? That's a videogame, right?" Eris asked

I was then trying not to hold in the amount of advanced cringe that was building up in me as I try to explain what it was, oh god why didn't I say something normal….

I then started to explain the concept of the arm that was in the game, the looks, color, abilities(2), but not why I wanted it, I want to keep any remaining good points I had about myself before I end up looking like a complete idiot...

"This is just giving me a big headache, why couldn't it be something normal…" Eris said as she was holding her head in pain

"sorry the overcomplexities, but I can sort of promise that the next one is normal….ish" As I say to try and reassure her, she just sat there groaning, the worst part is I was starting to feel sorry for her, "Alright," she said, as she was starting to look a little bit more normal, "what's the next item…"

"The next item is actually a sword so…" Eris gave a breath of relief "oh thank god, it just a…" She started to think for a moment, and ask "Is the sword also from that game…" in the most emotionless voice I've heard….shit I've been found out

I didn't say anything, but that alone was able to restore her to the confused, yet totally exhausted self again. I need to stop putting her through this, seriously…..

"What's it called…" Eris said through the hands that resumed holding her head

"The Red Queen…." I said in in a small voice, yet she still heard me and said "Ok, explain…"

Someone, anyone, please don't give her any trouble after this, she's already had enough….

I then explained what the Red Queen was(3), and after explaining that it was a normal broadsword with an interesting mechanic added to it, she seemed a little bit refreshed that it was normal to an extent.

"Ok, I think that's everything, just need to summon the circle…" She then stood up, and lifted her arms. What appeared was a circular rune that surrounded me and blinded me similarly to what brought in the VP, but this time I actually felt my right arm changing, and my back getting slightly heavier.

When the blinding light disappeared, I looked at my arm and almost went into Full Nerdgasm as I saw the the design of the dark red and blue design appear on my arm with a light blue glow coming from it, holy shit the nerdgasm is too strong, I might lose all my good point in front of Eris if I do that now.

I then remember something that I probably should've asked earlier, now she really is going to hate me…

"Hey…..Eris?" I asked sort of embarrassed because of the now less stupid request, She then looked at me with a face of slight sadness, she be thinking that she might messed something up.Please don't do that face, my heart can only hold so much, i then asked "Can I get a change of clothes too, I don't think it'd be appropriate for to walk around with a sword and Pj's on…"

Surprisingly, she actually accepted this request without hesitation, well...compared to last two requests, this was probably the best thing to say…

The same glow around me, but this time quicker, as I was changed from having a t-shirt with a movie logo on it and sweatpants paired with slippers, to black pants that fitted nice with black boots that could be used for everyday activities, and a dark blue long sleeve shirt to accent the color scheme. The only thing that wasn't replaced was my necklace which still stayed the same. I felt pretty badass, even though I didn't do anything yet.

Then what looks to be a hole opening up in floor appeared, and a bright light came out of it. Eris then started a grand speech:

 ** _"Tsukiyo Nakano, you will be heading to the new world and will become one of the candidates heroes to defeat the Demon King, although you are a rare occurrence in the afterlife, you have received your 'gifts', and are now prepared to leave! Now head off hero! May you and your companions that lay in wait be victorious among the many other candidates, and become the one to defeat the Demon King..._**

 ** _...Well then, I bid to you...Farewell!"_**

I was then setting off to the other world and seeing Eris for the last time. I was going off to this journey that may or may not kill me, but hey no point lying in wait!

I was going off into an amazing world, with these amazing gifts, to do something no others might not be able to.

The start of something amazing…..

…..this…..was NOT that story….

(oh look another long ass chapter with no backstory to make it long as hell, even though its longer than the last, GREAT….

on a side note though, this is actually getting enjoyable, can't wait to spend 10 chapters for 1

volume….if i have the motivation for that…

also i might do updates on weekends or whenever i can write somthing decent idk)

Reference:

1 - https/m./gallery/yMvbV

2 - http/devilmaycry./wiki/Devil_Bringer (to those who don't know)

3 - http/devilmaycry./wiki/Red_Queen ()


	3. New World, New Life, same old gravity

I was falling headfirst into the hole that was opened on the ground after Eris gave me my gifts and opened the "portal" to the fantasy world.

For the first time, I was actually excited for something that sounds ridiculous and completely fake, but am glad to know that it actually exists.

All the joy and glee that I happened to feel at the time, completely disappeared and turned into curiosity and slight anxiety since I was almost there, the new world where I will restart my life and try to have future.

As I was thinking, I started to see the land around me, the mountains, the fresh air, and the bright blue sky, almost as if the perfect summer sky has set in and all one would have to do is sit there, enjoy the view, and take everything in. I was breathless, on how much of a beautiful world this was.

I looked down, to see a small medieval like town, there was still a couple thousand feet below me so it looked a bit small, but because I lived in a city most of my childhood I guess this was something new to me.

Since I was not familiar with the land whatsoever, I wondered how I would get by in life, I'm not sure if I'd be able to read the language or understand the laws that are in the world itself. Well, that and money itself, I don't think I would be given a starter pack at the very beginning, I mean, I already got the Red Queen and Arm, going farther than that would probably be hand holding..

As I was rambling to myself about literally everything about the world, I noticed that I was getting dangerously close to the ground and showed no sign of slowing down either.

shit, shit, shit, Shit, SHIT!

At least one thing was for certain! Rules of gravity still applied!

I didn't have a landing strategy planned whatsoever because I was too distracted by the scenery and other small details, instead of focusing on NOT TRYING TO DIE THE MOMENT I JUST GOT REVIVED FROM DYING!

'I'm too close to the ground! I'm really going to die! Again!' I thought as I was now closing my eyes and hoping that the pain of falling to death was quick just like my original death…

...ok, that was probably the worst thing to think of after getting revived….seriously what's with my mentality…

As I continued to close my eyes, I felt a small gust of wind fly close to the front side of my body like something lost all momentum before hitting me.

As I opened my eyes hesitantly not wanting to see what was going to hit me, I opened them only to see the ground, I seemed to be levitating lightly over the ground. When I put both my hands on the ground to see If it was actually real, and not me in purgatory, all the levitation that held up my body disappeared in less than half a second, making my body hit the ground hard. It probably would've hurt less if I didn't have the Red Queen with me putting about 15 pounds of pressure on my back, but hey, construction and industrial work put my back in much more stress, so this was nothing to complain about.

As I picked myself up from the ground, a small paper bag seemed to appear in front of me. Since I was slightly suspicious from it appearing out of thin air I cautiously opened it only to find a note and a leather sling that covers the entire arm and fingers, it looked like it was meant for the right arm too.

Since I was the only person around in the near 10ft around me, I open the note and read what was written:

 _Hey Tsukiyo,_

 _I forgot to mention that people in the fantasy world are sort of religion heavy,_

 _so to make sure you don't get hunted down by the people from a misunderstanding I've prepared this sling to hide your arm,_

 _you know, with it being a demon arm and such...but other than that good luck._

 _~Eris_

You know, now that you mention this...didn't Nero (1) also do this to hide his arm….oh boy, I did not think this through did I…

Since there was still no one around me in a 10ft radius, I quickly put on the arm sling and threw away the paper bag, 'Ok' I thought 'Now my adventure starts here….

As I was walking around, a lot of people seem to notice me, not because of the casual ware that I had on or the Red Queen hanging off my back, but mainly because of the sling.

Man is it really awkward to see so many pitying stares, very uncomfortable...but at least I'm not being chased down for being a "demon"

After a while of walking around of what looks to be a small-ish town, an old man that seems to be running a fruit stand called out to me and gestured me to it too.

"Hey, boy. Come 'ere a sec."

I went over to where he was running the stand, and saw a lot of different fruits that I could not recognize. The old man then pulled out what looks to be a cigarette, and lit it with his thumbs….wait….with his….thumbs….?

As I try not to show my surprise and curiosity, he asked me,

"You're not from around 'ere ain't 'cha?"

He said while the cig was still in his mouth, sort of remind me of the old men I'd find in the old noodle stall I used to work in.

"No sir, not really" I replied

"Drop the formalities, I'm not some kind a noble here. Just a man tryin' make a livin'."

"Sorry, just a habit from where I came from…" I usually tended to respect elders more, probably because they were near their "time", didn't want to do anything unnecessary.

He then asked me another question, "You tryin' to become an adventurer huh?"

Man, either the elders here are very wise or I'm just an open book…

"Yeah, I am. Any place to register as one?" I asked.

He then busted out laughing as if he saw me bust my ass from nothing

He then stopped laughing after a good minute or two and said, "Man, you really came from the boonies if ya don't know this place at all, heh heh heh!" He chuckled slightly, "But then again, you prolly, couldn't afford that there piece on yer back if ya did" He said as he pointed to my sword.

I asked sort of hesitantly, "Sorry to ask a dumb question, but what this place, just looks like an ordinary town to me, I'm not from this land"

He then started to explained what this place was, "This place is the town of beginner adventurers, also known as Axel Town. Like the title suggests, it's a place where beginner adventurers stay to hone their skills and soon become real adventurers to fight off even the toughest of enemies sent from mother nature or the Demon King itself. You were askin' for the a place to register, right? Keep going straight and find a big tavern on the right, miss it and you'll be an even bigger laughing stock than what you are right now, now go ahead and scram, I'm not running a social club here…"

As the old man drove me away, I started to walk away and find the tavern, "Thanks old man!" I said loud enough to make sure he heard me, I glanced back to see him shake his head, but see a small smirk form around his mouth.

As I continued straight down the path as the old man told me, low and behold, there was a big tavern too big to be missed. There was as sign on the tavern that said 'Adventurers Guild', what I almost missed was the fact that it was written in a different language than Japanese, 'Guess that answered one of my questions' I thought.

Well no point in waiting around, here goes nothing!

As I stepped into the tavern, all that filled the air was the smell of booze, shouts and cheers, and servers doing their jobs by serving food and beer to the people that ordered, even though I was there for about 5 minutes, I could already tell I would not like spending time here. 'I guess by their clothes and armour, I can assume that almost everyone here is either an adventurer or part of the tavern, but hey assuming only leads to trouble….don't want to misgender or misidentify someone….' I thought sarcastically.

As I took a few steps forward into the tavern, a lady in a booth the opposite direction of the actual tavern itself called out to me. As I walked toward her, she greeted me seeing that it might've been my first time here.

"Hello there, are you here to register as an adventurer?" she asked warmly

"Yes I am, is there a fee to it?" I asked, you can never be too careful, got scammed a couple of times when I was younger when offered "free" stuff

"Yes there is, but if you don't have any money today, or not have enough, then you can rent one for the week and pay for it when you have the money. Does that seem like something you want to do?" She said

"Yeah that can work" I said, I guess this isn't a bad deal, follows simple logic

She then took out what seems to be a small gold-ish card, a form, and pencil. "Please fill out you name, age, height, weight, and other necessary information below." she said as she gave the items to me.

Name: Tsukio Nakano

Age: 18

Height: 180 cm (5' 11")

Weight: 65 kilos (145 lbs)

Hair color: Brown

Eye color: Dark Blue

Necessary info: Broken right arm, Slow recovery

She then took the form and pen, "Oh, you have a broken arm, are you sure you still want to go through being an adventurer?" She expressed genuine concern for me, but I was feeling a little guilting that it wasn't really broken, so I replied "Oh it's alright, the incident was a long time ago and I'm pretty used to handling my sword one handed, it fine" I said as I tried not to look guilty.

The woman in the booth then sighed and replied, "Alright, please touch the card."

As I touch the card with my left finger, and large amount of number and weird symbols appear in front of the card like some futuristic hologram. As the lady was looking at my card, she seemed to be sort of impressed at the some of the numbers displayed.

Still in a confused daze I asked, "Hey, so what are those numbers and symbols for?" She then got out of her small trance of looking at my card and said apologized, "oh pardon me, but these numbers and symbols are your statistics being shown. Each of these symbols are an attribute of the human body, strength, stamina, luck, vitality, defense, you know. As for the numbers they are represented on a scale, determining how high they are, the bigger the number the better. Your stats, however, is higher than average for a young man like you, especially strength even though you're handicapped to one hand. What were you doing before you came here?" The lady asked.

I answered with "I was usually working along with my brother to help out with paying bills for our mother, it was usually in the summer but the jobs I got were not normal for your average teen/young adult." Thankfully, this was true so I didn't feel as guilty as my arm excuse.

"I see, That's so sweet for you to do for your mother!" she said in a happy tone "I guess those jobs in the summer paid off huh?" She then started to smile

"Alright, with this information you should be all set to go out and hunt. Since you're handicapped I would think it'd be better for you to go out as a Crusader to gain more defense, but it's your choice whether or not you would like to be one or be a Swordsman." she said.

Seeing as my Fanboyism is going slightly nuts internally, I calmly said "Swordsman should be fine, I'm pretty agile despite my looks" God that was cringy….

She then pointed to the left and said "That board over there is the Quest Board, any jobs that are available for adventurers to handle will be posted there. Take a look and see if there is a job there suited for you. Also recruitment posters will also be there, it's better to fight in a party rather than on your own."

"Alright, thank you." I said as I walked over to the board with multiple pieces of paper nailed onto it, some of them stamped with multiple skull logos over them.

As I searched through the posters that were hung up, I suddenly heard loud wailing and crying from outside the tavern 'The hell is going on out there?' I thought it was probably just a kid complaining from the sounds of it, but was surprised to see a girl with light blue hair and a blue and white dress quietly sobbing as she entered the tavern, along with her seemed to be a guy with brown hair and a green tracksuit looking soulless following the blue haired girl, both looked to be younger than me. 'I don't want to know what happened to them, but whatever I do, DON'T MAKE ANY EYE CONTACT, its better not to get involved with people that might get you killed…' I looked back at the board to see if there was anything easy enough to do myself pay off the rental, then saw a sign saying "Want giant toads east of the town walls gone, 5,000 Eris per toad ", sure this'll do, as long as I don't get involved with troublesome people…I then grabbed the piece of paper nailed to the wall and quickly left the tavern.

As I went to the east side of the town and walked out a couple of miles away from the wall entrance, I managed to spot 2-3 toads hopping in random directions. Ok, this'll be harder than I thought, as i reached for the Red Queen in my left hand and unsheathed it from my back, It felt relatively light than what I was anticipating. When I was flat on my stomach, I swear it weighed at least 15 pounds, but now it feels sort of light, to test something out I decided to drop it on the ground….yup, that why.

When I looked at the spot the Red Queen was at, it looked like it sinked heavily into the dirt. It might be because the Red Queen was my cheat-like item and that I might've been given special powers from it so only I would be able to wield it, although this was sort of cliche in most Anime and Mangas that I saw, it was pretty useful when put into effect.

After picking up the sword that laid in the ground and swinging it a couple of times doing some combos I remembered from the game, I felt a mad rush of nostalgia and glee soaring through my body, man was it so fun to swing this around like Nero(1). I then snapped out of to focus in the task at hand, 'I can fuck around later, let's treat these toads as a tutorial…' I then revved the

Red Queen twice, and went towards the toads.

'Let's see what this baby can do!' I thought as I started my first battle!

(Authors note: I think I might be having too much fun with this, oh well fuck it!

I know this is something you (the reader) of thought of but yes, I will explain what the MC looks like (face wise), I know I should've done so in the beginning, or the last chapter, but I'm just nitpicky a little. I will do so in the next chapter, and maybe draw an illustration of him)

Reference:

1 - http/devilmaycry./wiki/Nero


	4. Killing Pepes brothers and Encounters

(The first fight will start and because I'm bad at explaining fights in detail, I will use a video as reference to explain what Tsukiyo is doing. I know it's lazy, but I'm just doing this fanfic for fun I don't intend to be a serious writer, this is all coming from imagination and hype. I don't own the video, all gameplay comes from DMC4SE, and the vid is owned by Draethion.

Reference vid: https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DRnMl3OHraX4ved=0ahUKEwiTg4Lny_XbAhWJL3wKHaGUCE8QwqsBCCcwAAusg=AOvVaw12zzPzUdriZ-PT3OZGz9u6

Also if you've already played

DMC4 then I'll also list off the specific move at the end of the move summary/explanation/thing in brackets, example: [Red Queen Combo A] )

Everything went well for the first couple of toad kills, I killed them in good style and kept caution of the other ones nearby….but that one toad…..that one Fucking toad….I don't want to even remember the horror of what it did….

~2 hours earlier…

'Let's see what this baby can do!' I thought as I stood there with a face of confidence with the Red Queen shining of my shoulder.

This was going to be my first battle. Even if it isn't a badass battle where the land around me is turned into a battleground, it didn't matter...All adventures have to start somewhere…

As the wind blew to the side where my sort of long hair covered a bit of my left eye, I started walking towards the toads that were. Regardless of my arm and Red Queen, I still have to be cautious since anything can happen and I don't want to be caught in a bad situation where I can't escape.

As I took the Red Queen off my shoulder and onto the ground, the toad that I was approaching seemed to have noticed me and before It could even react to my appearance I tried slashing at it with one of the combos hoping that it'll just go down and not alert the others. I started with a downwards slash and followed up with to more slashes going from a diagonal top right to bottom left to a horizontal left to right, finishing off with a heavy downwards slash impacting the toad [Red Queen Combo D]

As I lifted the Red Queen from the remains of the toads, It hadn't hit me yet that I actually killed my first mob like monster. It felt weird, the fact that I was able to kill something so easily in this world so quick, made me sort of dizzy and overwhelmed. I wasn't able to take care of these feelings personally since it looked like 2 more toads were heading this way.

'No time for rest yet, gotta deal with these before they get too close' I thought as I took some short breaths before attacking the 2 toads.

When the toads got into enough range to make my next move, I held my Sword to my right shoulder, blade towards the toads, and rushed at them just to swing horizontally while using the sword Rev (Exceed) to inflict a bit of slash, slight fire, and knockback to them to separate them to take on one on one [Exceed move at 1:50.] As soon as both of them were knocked back, I used the same combo I used before on the first toad on a pink looking toad on the left [Red Queen Combo D.]

When that finished, the other toad that was knocked back seemed to jump towards towards me, having no time to react, I pulled out my demon arm to stop the toad from crashing into me, and just like in the game a bigger and somewhat transparent version of my arm appeared next to my right and caught the toad [Buster - 4:36, knowing what to do next, I slammed the toads face into the ground as hard as I can. Before it could even react, I back away quickly and rushed at it with both hands on my sword and slashed it diagonally slashing from bottom right to top left [Shuffle.]

I was breathless, held my own in facing off against toads and had a close call that nearly got me eaten if I didn't have my de-

I slid my arm back in the sling, checking around if there was anyone around me. Seeing that there was no one else around but me, I gave a sigh of relief.

It would've been bad if someone saw my arm and called the authorities, gotta be more careful.

Seeing that the coast was clear, I hunted for more toads around the town walls since there was only 3 here.

After another 20 minutes or so of walking and looking, there didn't seem to be any toads nearby.

'Well that's a shame, only 15,000...Eris? I think, that's what the currency is called, but um….that's a little arrogant if I say so myself, but it doesn't matter' I thought as I still walked by the wall.

I was just about to give up and cash in my kills until I heard shrieking and crying coming from up ahead, and what do I see….

….the troublesome people earlier that I didn't want to encounter whatsoever, the guy in a green tracksuit and the blue haired girl with the weird dress…

It seemed that they were also trying to fight toads, but it looks like the toads got them surrounded. I wanted to see how they did since I was curious on how strong they were, but my curiosity was instantly turned into shock when I saw the blue haired girl get eaten head first by a pink toad….holy shit

The guy who was in the green tracksuit seemed just as shocked as I was when the girl got eaten headfirst, that's really got to be traumatizing.

"Aqua! Holy shit!" The guy in the tracksuit shouted, so he tried to free her from the toad by stabbing the toad in the stomach repeatedly and managed to do so until the other toads surrounding them got closer, the blue haired girl started to bawl as they were going to die

'Shit, I have to help them out, they're really gonna die If they don't get any help!' I thought as I rushed to them, man why does my good natured heart has to react at times like these!

As a green toad was about to eat tracksuit guy, I leaped into the air and combined my exceed with a downwards air stab to pin one of the toads down [Exceed move at 1:52, tracksuit guy looked at me as my blade was still tabbed into the toad, "Go Now! I got This!" I shouted at tracksuit guy. He didn't hesitate to run while grabbing the wrist of the sobbing and slimey blue haired girl.

As soon as both of them was at a safer distance, I took out my Red Queen that was still in the toad and started to exceed my sword a bit before starting a multiple slash attack in a quick succession. It started with a standard downward slash and a diagonal slash going from top right to bottom left, and performing that slash in reverse and inverted, sort of looking like an X, and finishing it off with 3 tilted horizontal attacks going to from right to left getting slightly more diagonal with each slice [Red Queen Combo C.]

This hit both of them since both were started to back up a bit. To finish both of them off, I hit the right toad with a upward slash attack by dragging my sword on the ground and slashing upwards that left a messy gash from the bottom of the toad to its stomach [High Roller Vers. 1, and for the other one, I start with a standard downwards slash that I used for all my attacks, but this time I slammed the blade of my sword on top of the toad repeatedly until I stabbed it, blade away from me, and forcefully slashed away nearly splitting the toad into 2 [Red Queen Combo B.]

I then placed the blunted side of the Red Queen on my shoulders to take a quick breather from all the sword play. Since both of the adventurers I saved were still watching, I looked backed at both of them and gave them a thumbs up with a small smile to signal that I managed to beat them...at least that's what I thought...

What happened next after that will probably traumatize me for the next couple of weeks since it looks like it came straight out of a horror film…

When Tsukiyo gave the thumbs up to the two rescued adventurers, a toad that seemed to be resting underground rose up from the dirt and swallow him whole as he was blissfully unaware of the toad and was still giving the thumbs up and he was eaten.

What happened after that was a rescue attempt from the boy with the green tracksuit and the blue haired girl who was a still covered in slime, this was only the first day for the young man, and he will always remember the horror of being eaten alive...

~Present

I felt scared, very scared….

it was warm but suffocating….

I almost felt like giving up and starting a job as a an assistant of the old man's fruit cart…

….but sadly, I didn't have the guts to quit after a day of being an adventurer. I know that I'm stubborn at times, and that it got me in a couple of fights and arguments that resulted in losing a job, but this was justifiable since I felt like I was raped….

After I was rescued by the two of them, we decided to to take a shower first and talk a little, well I say "we", but it was really the blue haired girl begging for actual protection from toads if we were to face them again, this seemed to make the tracksuit guy angry and smack her in the back of the head.

So here we are, in the Adventurers Guild in the late evening while I'm trying to forget the trauma of 2 hours ago, both of the adventurers are stuffing their faces in with a 5 course meal of meat, salads, and beer…

"So...both of you started about 2 weeks ago as adventurers, and just started your first battle today…?" I said in confusion, although I don't know their situation in terms of power or money, you would think that in those 2 weeks you could've started earlier…

When tracksuit guy swallowed his food and downed it with a bit of beer, or something that smelled like it, he said "Yeah, because I didn't really have any starter gear when we came to this town, me and Aqua had to work in construction for 2 weeks to get some money, It was yesterday when I realised that working a dusk 'til dawn job wasn't a suitable job as an adventurer, so I finally managed to earn enough money for this short sword, even though it's sort crappy. What I want is a badass sword like yours, now that is a sword for an adventurer. By the way, My name's Satou Kazuma, this is Aqua, and she's not really an adventurer but just an arch-priest and goddess of party tric-" Tracksu-, I mean, Kazuma stopped talking and started moaning a bit as he got punched in the stomach when Aqua heard that, seems like they get along fine, kappa.

Aqua then swallowed her food and had just a bit of food smeared on her the side of her lips, making her "Grand" introduction by standing up with one foot on the table…

"My name is Aqua, yes, the Goddess Aqua! Leader of the Axis cult, top tier Arch-Priest, and Goddess of the Water! If you're a devotee of mine, I demand for you to protect and cherish me from the demonic-" Aqua then got cut off by Kazuma who dragged her down and tried stopping her from making a scene "ok, ok, we get it. Shut Up" Aqua then pouted and continued to eat her food while pouting, jeez this girl is already irritating…

Kazuma then started apologising "Sorry for that, she does that a lot when she gets the chance" He then said the next thing while gritting his teeth and looking at Aqua "You should really stop doing that to everyone we meet, I don't want to be stuck with a useless person for the rest of my life..." Aqua ignored him and continued to eat her meal happily.

Kazuma really looks like he has a tough time with this chick, wonder what's her problem…

"Oh yeah, your Satou Kazuma huh, your names sounds really japanese you know..." I said in a stern yet happy voice, at least I can talk to someone who came from the same country as me…"By the way, My name's Tsukiyo Nakano, nice to meet you too."

Kazuma eyes seem to light up a bit, looks like I might be the first person he's talked to, to be considered "normal". Not sure why, but there seems to be this bond between random people from the same birth countries that can't be explained when surrounded by everyone who from this random world. He then asked, "Hey, if you're also from japan doesn't that mean you also got a cheat-like item? Is it your sword? It doesn't look like something a blacksmith is capable of making at this time period." He seemed really interested in the Red Queen, I'd be more careful with it if it was a normal sword, but because of it's very heavy and my item, I don't think it'll be a problem, "Yeah it's my Item that I got, It's called the Red Queen."

Kazuma looked at it with a "cool" expression and voice, and said, "Ah Yes, a sword befitted of its name to slain the wicked…" Just when I thought he was normal…."By the way what happened to your arm?" Kazuma asked, so I said in a convincing voice "oh, just a small incident where the bone got fracture while working in japan, it's nothing to worry about it though, the goddess that sent me here told me that injuries from the original world can't be healed once I entered the fantasy world, so it'll have to heal on it own." This was probably one of the worst lies I've told, but since I didn't have a choice I had to make it up...

"oh, I'll be right back, gotta turn in the kills from earlier…' I said. As I got up and walked towards the booth that held the woman who gave me my card, Kazuma asked me "Hey, you know how to turn in your kills right? I'll come with you since I need to know too, Aqua! don't eat any of my food. You hear me?" Aqua was still eating when we left, not even a response…

When we got to the booth I met with the same woman and turned in my kills only to get 29,000 Eris, and paid for the actual adventurer card and swapped in my rental. Kazuma, because he saved me and Aqua, only got 10,000 eris, "Wow, we really got a lot! Looks like we're going to to able to eat well tonight!" He said smiling as he tried to grab my bag of Eris, which I pulled away from him. Having the same fixed smile, he said "Hey, Hey, Hey. We should be sharing this since we fought those toads, what's with you being greedy all of a sudden?" he said with a tone of seriousness and persuasiveness, so I did the same "Hey, Hey, Hey. What's with this fake attitude, by the way I fought 3 on my own, had to pay off the rental, and save you guys, I deserve a bit more you know?" Kazuma then replied back, in a little bit more serious voice, "Hey, Hey, Hey. I did save you too you know, where's my compensation? You'd be dead if it weren't for me…" I replied back, "Hey, Hey, Hey. This was your fault too, why didn't you run as soon as 4 toads popped up huh, it common sense to run when you're outnumbered."

This went on for awhile until we both agreed that I'd only give a quarter of what I earned to him for saving me. When we got back to the table where Aqua was still at, it looked like she ate both her and Kazuma's portion of food when the both of us were arguing about pay, and what seems to be even worse is that she's drunk as hell, and I've had more than enough experiences of dealing with drunk people.

I turned towards Kazuma and said while backing up "She's all yours…" I guess this was karma in a way for trying to swindle me of some cash. I then went to the lady in the booth and asked her about any possibles cheap places to sleep at, and she recommended going to a small hotel in the middle of the town where it's 9,000 a night. Since I didn't have much choices to choose from I decided to go and spend the night there.

It took about 20 minutes to walk there and 5 minutes to find and pay for a room. My room that I spent nearly half my money on was actually pretty ok. There was 4 walls, obviously, a walk out balcony, 1 window, small bathroom with only a toilet and shower, an old stove with an old sink and about 3 ft of a countertop on the left, bed for one, and a small table with a lamp lit.

Since it was my first time sleeping alone without any of my family members with me, I felt a bit lonely, and my heart started to have of feeling of uneasiness, sadness, and grief. It felt like my heart was being squeezed from being hurt. It was now that it came back rushing to me that I died and that I won't be able to see my mother and brother again…

I took a moment to let it sink in, and when it did I didn't want to think about it anymore.

I took off my sling and placed it on the small table next to my bed. I hung the Red Queen next to the wall, and made sure it wouldn't fall during night. Took off my boots and went to bed, my necklace was still with me, but It wasn't enough to stop my emotions….I'll try and deal with them tomorrow.

I then fell asleep hoping that my emotions would go away for a bit until I have a way to sort them out easily...

...re….wer

huh?

i w...t ...re……p..wer

What's that voice?

I need more power…

More power?

I NEED MORE POWER!

(just a quick note, I guess it's official that i'll be updating in the weekends, at least 1-2 chapters, until middle of august because of work, and when august comes it might be rare-ish updates because of college, so take that as you will…Also there was no shitty illustration here cause the shitty program I used it on crashed, and made me lose 4 hours of work, so you'll see it someday…)


	5. Late Night Walk and more Encounters

I woke up quickly and startled since I wasn't sure of what happened…

Who was that voice? and why did it need more power? what for?

I felt like I was missing an important piece of info from the game to understand what it meant since this started as soon as I got this arm and entered this world, but I've only played 4 and not the others sadly…

Seeing as I couldn't go back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried, I got up from my bed, put my boots, sling, and sword on, and went out for a bit just to get some fresh air.

I exited the hotel I was staying at and looked around the town, it was completely empty.

For some reason this reminded me of a certain saying…

"50,000 people used to live here...now it's a ghost town…"

Man I'm such a (normie) memester, of course this was no Chernobyl, but the emptiness felt like it

As I walked around the (ghost) town, It was really eery to know that it got really quiet when night hit. Of course there were a couple of stores still open, but there were only 1-2 people spending time there so I decided to go to the hills and see if I can clear my head there.

When I arrived at the gates to go out in the hills, It seemed to be completely closed. Probably a precaution just in case of wandering monsters accidentally coming into town. Looking over to the right of the gate seemed to be a blonde guard in some medium armour guarding a doorway that lead to the outside.

I called over to him "Hey, mind if I get out for a moment need to clear my head a bit" He looked over to my direction and said in a stern voice "No one is allowed to leave after midnight, too dangerous even if your a veteran adventurer" I tried to persuade him saying that it'll only be for a short while, but he didn't budge, soon he said, "If you really want to take a look at the outside during night then go climb the hill over to the northeast, now go before my patience runs out!"

I did what the knight said and went over to the northeast to find a hill that overlooked a good 40% of the town, and gave a good view of the stars above. Man, this would be a good time to put some lo-fi and watch the stars till morning. As I layed down in the grass and gazed at the massive amount of stars watching me watch it, some of the emotions that I felt earlier seemed to be calming down a bit, it's weird how just taking a moment to calm down and take a look around your surroundings could help with sorting out some personal problems.

The wind blew gently as I was still watched the stars, and was reminded of the one time where me and my brother spent a night in a tent inside a forest just to look at some stars that wasn't even visible because of the trees blocking our view of them. It was a nice and short time, but now that I've died and entered this world having to face a Demon King, this all seems so funny for some reason.

I can't help but laugh about how stupid this situation was, because I was a Devil May Cry 4 fanboy, I actually managed to get the Devil Bringer as my right arm, and an actually working Red Queen on my back to kill monsters with, while somehow managing to become a main character in some stupid fantasy/mmorpg story, man what stupid person created this story… too unoriginal…

I laid here for another hour or so until it got colder, so I decided to head back to the hotel. My mind and heart was in shambles for the most part, but those would have to wait for later, can't heal all the hurt at once, takes time to do so one at a time…

After walking back from the hill, and wandering around the town for another 20 minutes taking in the scene, I took a moment to lean on closed building and take a look at my adventurer card. This really is all it takes to register as an adventurer, only day one and I managed to kill 6 toads and somehow get to level 2.

On the top right corner of the of my card says Skills, as curious as I was I decided to tap on it only to have 5 different skill categories show up; Red Queen, Devil Bringer, Abilities, General, and Swordsman. After clicking each of of the categories I got an understanding of what what my role was and what purpose I serve.

Red Queen:

Damage multiplier - x1.0 (Max. x5.0) Upgrade: 1 point per x0.1

Exceed Bonus - x1.3 (Max 2.0) Increased Every 5 levels by 0.1

Range - 1 meter (Max 5 meters) Upgrade: 1/2 a meter per 5 points

Swing speed - 100% (Max 150%) Upgrade: 1% per 1 point

Knockback - x1.2 (Max x2.0) Increases as Red Queen receives upgrades

Demonic Cleanser: When held with the Devil Bringer, impact is increased by x1.5 and damage is increased by x1.5 in exchange for swing speed ( -25%)

Berial's Flames from the Fire Hell: When Red Queen is Exceeded beyond level 1, flames get more deadlier at the cost of 20% chance of inflicting self fire damage on level 2, and 40% when on level 3

Devil Bringer

(Buster) Strength - 100% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5%

Lift Strength - 50 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 5 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet

Treasure Detection (Unlocks at level 5)

Shield of Credo (Unlocks at level 10)

Bael's Cold Grip (Unlocks with Shield Of Credo)

Unyielding strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Power of Sparada: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% vitality

25% strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

Abilities

Sprint Speed - 100% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 21)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

??? - ??? (Requirements Unknown)

General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Strength : 21 Status: Calm

Vitality : 550/550 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 150

Stamina : 22

Defense :18

Agility : 23

Luck : 17

Faith : 0

Dexterity : 22

Will : 28

Intelligence : 20

Swordsman

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x1.2 (Max 2.0) Upgrade is x0.1 per point

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 10% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 5

MP Usage reduction with swords - 5% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 10% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 10% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

As I started to understand what some of the skills and numbers meant on the skills tab, the questions marks on the abilities tab seemed suspicious to me along with the fact that the requirement were unknown for them.

I can probably figure them out later, but right now I have to go back before sunrise, sleep is still the #1 priority to survive any situation regardless of the time period.

I managed to make it back to the hotel and enter my room without disturbing anyone, take my sling, boots, and sword off again, and this time try to fall asleep without any disruptions.

I closed my eyes for the 2nd time and hoped that I wont wake up until morning, and I did just that.

It was morning when I woke up, and I didn't hear any voices needing more power. It looks like taking that walk had some effect after all.

I then heard knocking on the door, the voice that came with it was the manager of the hotel, "Excuse me sir, your night is up! I'm going to need you too leave in the next 15 minutes for the next customers!" Well, I should've expected this, I responded back with, "Don't worry, I'll be out in 5!"

As I got up from the bed, I went to the sink to wash my face for a few minutes before putting my my stuff on, leaving the room, and giving the room key back to the manager.

Since it was early-ish morning, I decided to go to the Adventurers guild to find a quest that was possible for me to do, and NOT have toads included.

As I was entering the guild I saw both Kazuma and Aqua sitting in a table discussing something, feeling a weird feeling in my gut I tried to sneakily get to the board and not get discovered by them, but failed when Kazuma called out to me just when I was going to take a look at the Quest Board...so close, yet so, so far….

"Hey Tsukiyo! Over Here!" Kazuma shouted, I said back "You don't need to shout so early in the morning, I'm coming" I said as I slowly walked over to the to of them.

As soon as I was within 5 feet from them, Kazuma said something to me that I wanted to hear, but from someone else…

"Wanna form a party?" He asked

Now I have no personal problems with Kazuma, trust me, I have no beef. I just don't want to form a party with people who have no common sense or being forced to save them…

"I'll have to think about it, not sure If I want to go solo for a while and grind some levels, or something. I'll tell you when I know" As I said this, Kazuma got up close to me and said in a serious voice "Hey, you're trying to avoid us because of our capabilities are you?"

How the Fu-

"Well it doesn't matter you're still going to join us regardless of your decision, so that's that!" He declared triumphantly as I was standing there with a confused face, just when I was about to unleash hell on him I heard a small voice call out "Excuse me, I saw the notice to recruit top tier adventurers, are you stilling recruiting?"

The person who had the small voice behind me was a small girl who looked about 13 in a witch attire and staff, had dark red eyes and silk black hair with a big hat that reminded me of a certain character's hat from Final Fantasy…

I stepped aside since she probably was referring to Kazuma, as the small girl walked toward the middle of all 3 of us and made an "Introduction", "My name is Megumin! An arch wizard and an Elite member of the Crimson Demon Clan with the strongest spell known to man, Explosion!"

….god dammit, not another one…

As she finished her grand entrance, and without a second to waste, Kazuma retorted with "Are you here to make fun of us?" I was just about to ask that question too

"I'm not" Megumin Exclaimed, "I can prove it too! My explosion magic is strong enough to split mountains in half! Just not right now, I haven't eaten in days and need food badly, please let me eat something"

Did...Did she really just…?

A loud growl came from the stomach of the girl, that could be compared to the growl of a bear who is protecting its territory. Wow, she really is going that route is she…

After Kazuma ordered some food the starved girl, aqua told us "Hey, Crimson Demons are an actual race that are born with high intelligence and affinity for magic. Most have the potential to be a professional and are known for red eyes and weird names"

Megumin then shouted "My name's not weird!", "What are your parents name then?" Kazuma asked, Megumin replied with "Their names are Yuiyui and Hyoizaburo"

What kind of names are those? Sounds like something a weeb came up with…

As I stood there with slight disappointment, the other two were just as disappointed as me.

Aqua then broke the silence by saying "There should be no problem hiring this girl as our companion, she has the highest skill in the detonation system magic after looking at her card. She should be really amazing if she knows this spell"

"I have a name you know!" Megumin said in anger

Kazuma then said, "Yeah, yeah just eat. I'm Kazuma, this is Aqua and Tsukiyo, welcome to our party Miss Archwizard."

She was about to say something else, but instead, she just continued eating her food.

 _~Later_

We were back out in the field where the giant toads were, I was very hesitant going back here, but because these guys were probably gonna get killed, I had to watch over them.

"Hey target the toad farthest away from here, we don't know how big the explosion will be and don't want to be caught in the crossfire when you fire it off. Tsukiyo, you and me will target toads that are nearby, Time for a little revenge don't you think?" Kazuma explained, "Yeah, I've got some trauma and anger built up that I need to blow off…" I said as I cracked my fingers on my left hand individually (1).

Megumin was very eager and started chanting her spell. As she was chanting both herself and her staff to glow a bit, and it attracted the attention of a few toads, so me and Kazuma went to take care of them, as we did this, Aqua, being the person she is, went head to head with another toad opposite to me and Kazuma, I'm gonna bet about 8 minutes…

The ground started to tremble as well as Megumin's chanting getting louder, soon she screamed "Watch me Kazuma! The strongest possible attack of humans! The Ultimate….EXPLOSION!"

As soon as she said that, the toad that was in the distance didn't seem to notice the light above it and soon became a large ball of light that was so large that I probably could've seen it from my spot on the hill last light easily…

The wind was just now getting to us and it felt impossible to overcome, to try and avoid getting blown away, I dug my sword deep into the ground and held onto the grip with all my strength trying not to impersonate a paper bag in a Typhoon.

As soon as the wind calmed down, and I was able to place both of my feet onto the ground, I looked into the spot that was blown away by the spell, only to see about a hundred feet of blown away dirt and burned earth. It sort of reminded me of a mini Hiroshima…

What I saw next made my mouth gape wide open, finding a fucking toad, the same fucking toad Megumin tried to explode rise up from the dirt, unscathed and started hopping toward us

I was beyond pissed at this point, was this a fucking boss battle or a an immortal god toad of some kind!?

I dug my sword out of the ground and started walking towards the toad to "Gently" tell it to fuck off

Kazuma then called out before I reached the toad "Megumin let's retreat for now and try again from a distance…"

I looked towards Megumin who was somehow….faced down….in the dirt…..motionless….

"Megumin then said in an exhausted voice, "Now might be a bad time to say this but Explosion is my ultimate spell, the most powerful and most mana consuming, so to put it simply the mana I used exceeded my limit and now I can't move." A toad seemed to come up from behind her as she finished her sentence, "Umm there's another toad behind me so please help, don't wanna get eaten...Ahh!"

At this point I didn't to save her or Aqua who was eaten, as expected of aqua, but because I don't wanna get blamed for their deaths, me and Kazuma had to save them from being eaten…

We managed to get back to town with a slimy Megumin on Kazuma's back and a slimy Aqua walking along side of us complaining about the smell of the smell.

"As of right now, Explosion magic is banned, only use it in emergencies and try to learn other magic ok-"

"I can't" Megumin said as she cut off Kazuma of what he was saying, at this point I was dead inside and didn't want to listen to the reason

"Why Not?" Kazuma asked, I really hoped it wasn't a stupid reason…

"I only know explosion magic and can only use it" she said in a low voice, why do keep having expectations if they keep getting shot down each time I raise them an inch…

Kazuma asked seriously "...Are you serious?"

"...yes" Megumin said almost silently…

Aqua then joined the discussion after she stopped complaining about the slime and smell asking "What do you mean you only know explosion magic? You should have enough skills points if you had enough to spend it on Explosion, right?"

Megumin then went off in a speech "I am Archwizard that only loves explosion magic, nothing else. Adventures would be easier if I learned if I learned basic elemental skills and upgrade them to become advanced, but….I couldn't learn it because my only love is explosion magic and nothing else. Even if I can cast it only once per day, and collapse after using it, My one true love is explosion magic! It's the only reason why I chose the path of the Archmage, just to use explosion magic!"

I didn't know how to react….I had zero expectations now at this point, AND THEY KEEP GETTING LOWER! It's going into the negatives now!

So now we have a glass cannon Archmage, a "useless" Archpriest, and someone who has the lowest levels and is the only one with some common sense!

We continued down the road until there was a fork in it, and Kazuma happily exclaimed, "Alright well, that seems to be a swell life you're living, so let's divide our earnings and split off here ok? Good!"

Ditch her, come on, we need to run Fast!

I watched Kazuma struggling to throw off Megumin from his back, come on man! We don't have time!

Megumin then said in a almost desperate attempt, "Please let me stay! I just want to use explosion magic daily! You don't even need to pay me for food, living expenses or quest rewards, just let me stay!"

"No Thank you, we don't to have a right to have such a high level archwizard in our team, it'll be troublesome for you if you stay, so please LET GO AND GET OFF MY BACK! YOU'RE GOING TO STRETCH MY COLLAR IF YOU KEEP DOING THAT!

We then started to hear small murmurs and whispers around us, oh no….Public Shaming! The #1 tool used to ruin someone's reputation without using context!

Since I didn't want to get caught up with something that would put me in a bad position, I decided to bail before things got worse..."Well I have to go out and train for a bit so you guys can go and have fun with what you're going to do next, see ya tomorrow!" I finished the sentence as I was quickly walking backwards and soon running towards the adventurers guild by myself.

I decided to cash in my portion the of the quest that we took from the counter lady, and got back only 10,000 eris for holding back 1 toad and completing the quest. As soon as I got my money, I quickly went to the exit farthest away from the main entrance to make sure I wouldn't run into Kazuma and the others.

Well that was the plan but, because the exit farthest away from the main entrance was in the kitchen, I got caught by home of the chef's who were cooking at the time and forced me out of the kitchen….where I bumped into Kazuma who gave me a look as if he'd been betrayed.

"You'd do the same thing if she was on my back…" I said as I squinted at him

He stayed silent for a minute and asked, "Truce…?"

I replied with "Truce, let's go find another quest we can try. I don't have enough for living and food…"

As I went over to the Quest Board for something possible (non-existent) to attempt with this team, me and Kazuma heard a voice behind us from what looks to be a female knight in armour.

"Excuse me, May I ask you something?"

In a sense she sort of reminded me of Jeanne D'Arc from western stories I read on the internet when I was in my 8th grader syndrome with Knights and medieval stuff:

Blonde, heavy-ish armour with a different/weird design, and a broadsword just as big as the Red Queen on her hip. Not to mention that she was actually very pretty if you were to ignore the knight appearance and heroic like expression she had

I was wondering what she wanted since we seemed to be a good distance away from the board to allow others to see, so it might be something involving us, Great! More characters that might cause trouble for us, was what I wanted to say, but sadly couldn't….yet

Kazuma seemed to be in a trance from looking at her, so I elbowed him snapping him from his trance and gestured him to deal with it.

"U-um is something wrong?" Kazuma said as he fumbled to get his words out, so this was your type huh? Surprising….

"Yeah," she said, "I'm asking about the recruitment you set up earlier are you still taking members?" oh no, she might've triggered an unwanted flag. Quickly! Run! Run far away from us!

Kazuma responded with a sort of deadpan voice, "Yeah we're still hiring, but I wouldn't recommend you joining us. you'd just get in a lot more trouble than expected…"

The knight suddenly grabbed his hand and said happily "Please! Let me join your group!"

Hold on, have I seen this before…

"Seriously, I don't recommend that you join us, You see those two girl other there covered in slime? That just happened like 20 minutes ago, from low level toads! AHHH! AH! My Hands, My HANDS!"

I looked over to Kazuma's hands still being held by the female knights hands giving them the death grip of a lifetime while smiling happily...please...not another one...we can barely handle 2, please stop…

"I guess I was right to assume that they were your companions! What happened to them, please let me experience that too!"

Here I thought that the knight triggered the unneeded flag, when all along, I triggered it...by assuming things….

The knight then let go's of Kazuma's hand that now look like shriveled up french fries, and said gallantly "Wait, what I meant to I say was, that it was horrible for girls at a young age to experience something like that, I can't stand by as a knight! I'm a top-tier crusader, so I should be suitable for meeting the criteria that was sent on the recruitment."

…..who ever is doing this as some kind of sick prank towards us….WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS! WHO HURT YOU? WHO!?

"Ok, listen" Kazuma said in a serious voice "I really don't recommend you join us, we have a glass cannon of an archwizard, another is useless in general, I have the weakest job in this party, and this dude just started yesterday and is a level 2!"

Hey, Hey, Hey...do you want a deathwish?

"This is perfect for me! I'm confident in terms of strength and durability, so can tank all the damage if needed! I'm not too good with my hands and sword, so I can't…..hit anything..."

I….I….but why….who…please sto….stop…..

I held my head in pain with my left hand as I started to break down mentally and groan in pain...I really should've went solo….

"I don't mind being a shield and taking all the damage so please...use me….USE ME AS A SHIELD!"

I just sat there in silence continually breaking down mentally, she really did just say that did she…

"You don't get this, My team, aside from Tsukiyo, really sucks! The attacks will hit you and the monster might gang up on you!" Kazuma Used Reason and Logic!

"That's the way I want it to be in the battlefield!" Knight absorbed it! Ineffective!

"This might happen everyday, are you sure you want to do something like this!?" Kazuma used Assurance!

"I really want it!" The knight ignored the warning, Kazuma is out of moves! forfeited…

I'm done, I'm going hom-, I'm going back to the hotel…

"We'll pick this up tomorrow, I suddenly got very exhausted…" Kazuma said, "I second this…" I said as I stood up and headed out of the guild and went back to the same hotel as last night…

I don't think it'll take long to lose my sanity, or my shit during my time here….I'm betting 5 months, no...4 weeks if something like today is normal...

Reference:

1 - Kan-edgy Ken lookin ass


	6. Disappointment and Solo Missions

Why am I going back? Why?

I really don't have a reason to be there anymore, yet why am I going to my "new" teammates, to find a quest…?

Part of me wanted to answer with "To be a good person", but at this point I just might partner up with them, just so they can be my Insurance when shit hits the fan. And trust me, IT WILL

The tavern was just a few blocks away, and the time of day was just a little later than morning, but not afternoon yet…

The reason for why I was sort of, but not really late was...just contemplating my life at this point, and thinking whether or not my 2nd chance was an actual 2nd chance, or just being screwed over.

Either way, I was almost at a point where I wanted to rush into a forest with a lot of monsters to see if I would either die a painful, yet blissful death, or if I would be able to vent out my frustrations and anger...only to get more anger and frustrations because it was only day 3.

I was right in front of the Tavern doors when I came to my senses knowing that today will either completely shit on me or not use lube when I get fucked over by some random BS…

As I walked in the tavern, there doesn't seem to be much people here compared to yesterday and the first day, but in the corner of the lunch area in a booth closest to the bar was the 2 familiar and 1 not so familiar people that I was trying to get used to, Aqua and Megumin, also known as the Useless Priest and Terrorist bomber, talking and try to get familiar with the blonde knight from yesterday that nearly killed all brain cell activity in my brain from her speech.

Surprisingly though, There was no Kazuma around, did he ditch me for revenge from yesterday? If so, then I'm going to kick his ass when I find him…

Seeing as I was spotted by Jihad girl, I mean Megumin, who was eating her food along with Aqua, I walked over to them and asked "Hey, where's tracksuit?"

Aqua replied with "He's out in the back trying to learn thief skills from a thief…"

"Seems legit…" I didn't want to continue further with what he was doing, so I'll just leave it at that…

I then looked over the blonde knight and said in a voice without much energy left, because at this point I didn't want to have her involved with me in any way, shape, form, etc

"So….you came back…."

"Yes I did!, and I still want to join this party, so please consider it!"

Not even 5 minutes, and I already want to leave.

"Well that's for Kazuma and maybe the rest for us to decide, so go ask him again" I'd rather not deal with her this early in the morning so I'll push this onto Kazuma, too early for this shit…

She then looked at my sword and asked "Are you a crusader too?"

I looked at her and said "No, I'm just a swordsman, don't have the armour or defense for that type of job, doesn't bother me though…"

"And your arm?"

"Work accident, slowly healing" I said, I was wondering why people always ask that question first, but then again, it is one of the first things people tend to look at when meeting me

As I was thinking to myself, the blonde knight then started to pant a little heavily, hey, hey, hey, we're in a public place, calm your shit…

She then asked while panting heavily, "How did it feel?"

Do not backhand her, Do not backhand her, Do not backhand her…

As I was suppressing every urge to backhand some sense into her, and maybe vent out a little for not knowing common sense, Kazuma seemed to be walking in the Tavern from the front heading to us with his head high and mighty as if he became royalty, and alongside him seemed to be a silver haired girl almost Kazuma's height weeping softly…

Regardless of what happened, chances are it's was Kazuma's fault

The blonde knight seemed to be surprised when she saw the silver haired girl crying, and asked "Chris!, what happened?" Looks like they know each other, hopefully silver girl, a.k.a Chris, has some common sense in this world, but I doubt it

Chris then looked up at darkness and said "Kazuma, he...he….stole my….." She then ran towards the blond knight for comfort, whatever Kazuma did, it was probably scumbaggy. Chris then whispered something into the blonde knights ear, and without any shame at all of saying it, she said "Kazuma stole your panties!?"

….Looks like all my respect for him just went down the drain. I looked at him who went from high and mighty to flat-out scared when 3 of us glared daggers at him, who knew that the weakest one would end up the perverted…

He then tried to defend himself by saying "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey! It was not my intention to do so in the beginning! It was a complete accident, and I gave them back too! Right Chris?"

"Yeah I know it was an accident, but you didn't have to wave them around like a flag of victory!" Chris retorted back.

I do not sense any possible girlfriends for him if something like this gets out in the public, it'd be a shame if someone were to leak this…looks like I got some blackmail material...

"S-So lewd…!" said the blonde knight, oh no…

"Please let me join this party, it's absolutely perfect! I'm begging you!" The blonde knight said

My left hand was shaking with frustration while my face was showed me trying with all my might not to backhand her

Do not backhand her, DO NOT BACKHAND HER, **DO NOT BACKHAND HER YET!** Now when it came to women, I'd rather not hurt them in any way, but this...this is an exception…

"No, I don't wanna!" Kazuma said with pain coming from his eyes, what happened next threw me for a loop and a half...the blonde knight seemed to...you know I don't even want to describe this, she might be more perverted than him

Aqua then came over to us and asked "Hey, who is this? Wasn't she the same knight who talked to you guys yesterday? what's she want?"

The blonde knight then snapped out of her…"trance" and replied with "Hello there! I am a Crusader, please let me join your party, I'll be the tank so you guys won't have to take the damage!" She started panting again, what was she some kind of dog?

"You're a Crusader!? Guys we need her! Me and Megumin don't want to be covered in slime again! Let her be the bait!" Aqua said, she really didn't see any value in the blonde knight did she? Well then again, neither did we…

"Oh by the way I'm Aqua, the kid eating at the table is Megumin, the cripple on the left is Tsukiyo, the piece of trash right next to you is Kazuma, nice to meet you...um" Aqua said as she didn't know the knight's na-HEY WHO'RE YOU CALLING CRIPPLE!

The female knight then said, "My name is Darkness!" That's more of a nickname then an actual name, but hey at least it's something normal-ish

"Nice to meet you Darkness, come on KazuTrash and Cripple, let's find a-" Me and Kazuma then gave her a good backhand to Aqua's head as we dragged her to the table and left her there to find a quest…we'll we probably would've if it weren't for the-

"Emergency Quest! Emergency Quest! All Adventurers gather in the guild, I repeat, All adventurers to the guild!"

At this point, if there was an emergency big enough that ALL the adventurers would be called for, I didn't have the imagination to wonder what situation this would be, either it was a very dire one, or one that is nearly impossible, either way this sounded serious

The woman who was usually in a booth, was standing on top of a table in the middle of the eating area starting to explain the situation loud enough so people in the back could hear her "Alright! I'm sorry to call this meeting very last minute! But it's finally cabbage season, and the quality of the cabbage this year is very great, so each cabbage will be 10,000 eris each as long as it's not completely damaged, obliterated, or burnt! Please make sure to have fun, be safe, and catch as much as you can!"

As soon as the woman finished her speech and climbed down from the table, all the adventurer cheered and started to leave the tavern while me and Kazuma were both standing in disappointment…

Now, when it came to work, I wouldn't complain much, probably 1-3 times in the first month then none at all. Do the work, Get paid, go home, that was it. But situations like this were you could get easy money from doing something pointless...nah, I'm not gonna take this shit.

As I was thoroughly disappointed in the "Emergency Quest" I decided to head to the Quest board and do an ACTUAL quest that I can level up from and blow off some steam with.

After taking a good look at the board and skimming through some quest logs to see of any of them would be possible alone, I managed to find two of them that although were challenging, paid good:

\--

Extermination Request:

Frost Wolves are coming to my farm at night and are destroying the crops, feeding off my livestock, and terrorizing my family.

Location: Southeast side of Axel Town wall 2-3 miles away, near flowing river

Reward: 200,000 Eris and Homemade meal from family

\--

Recon Request:

Stone Golems are popping up out of nowhere and in great numbers, but rumors are going around saying that it's coming from a mine long abandoned. Scout out the mine and confirm the location. Veteran Adventurers will be called ASAP if the location is confirmed.

Location: Mountain area 10 miles North of Axel Town

Reward: 140,000 Eris along with any loot found in mine

\--

Seeing as the farm mission took place in the night only, I decided to head up north to the mine. It might be cold there, so it's probably best to get a coat to keep myself warm, not sure what the seasons are like in this world, but it's was still winter back in Japan.

I then passed Kazuma who was still standing in disappointment and said "See ya", as I left the Tavern and went to a tailor shop. When I got to the tailor shop, I asked him what I needed if I was going up north to the mountain area, and he recommended me a black cloak/trench coat that went down to my thighs, that had sleeves to cover my arms, and had integrated fingerless gloves. Sadly this took all my money, so I had no choice but to do these missions right, and get my pay asap.

After leaving the northern gates of Axel Town, I continued to head up north but I managed to see some stone golems when I reached the 5 mile mark. Since I was still underleveled and unsure of how to defeat stone golems, I had to try my best to not get spotted and reach the mine stealthily so other more qualified adventurers can take out the source and wipe them out altogether.

As I slowly made the rest of the 5 miles towards the mine, while dodging the vision of the golems that started to appear more frequently, I started to feel a bit cold while moving up, even with the cloak on.

But thanks to some quick thinking and extreme risk taking, I exceeded my Sword to level 2 to keep myself warm for the moment, but was almost noticed since exceeding my sword makes noise from the gears inside the sword moving quickly to generate heat.

I finally managed to get to the mine, but to my surprise, the entrance was empty and unguarded. This was too suspicious regardless of how you looked at it, I found a couple of pebbles and rocks next to me, and tossed them over at the empty space in front of the mine entrance.

To my surprise nothing happened, even after waiting 5-7 minutes nothing happened, was I being too paranoid or is there really nothing there?

I decided to head to the mine cautiously and check my surroundings quickly the closer I got to the mine. When I reached it I started to have this ominous feeling of something watching me, so to try and lure it out, I went inside the mine that somehow still had some lanterns lit inside it, and continued walking until I had an opportunity to take it down.

The inside of the mine was what you'd expect a mine to be like, uneven and unsmoothed walls, wooden beams on the side holding up loose boulders that were small enough to be held up by the beams, and a minecart track on the ground leading to the outside. After a while of walking in the mine, I reached a small fork in the road leading to two walkways.

Since there was a lantern lit in between the fork, and there was no human/adventurers around, I took my devil arm off the sling and grabbed the lantern with it heading towards the right walkway.

The ominous feeling was still there making me feel uncomfortable along with the eerie silence of the mine, but I couldn't show fear since whatever it was might take that opportunity to jump out at me.

I soon reached a room where there was mining equipment that was left behind, and minecart full of stone and some coal. There was nothing in this room that could be taken since the mining equipment was rusted beyond repair, and the stone and coal are useless because magic existed.

Deciding to head back and go towards the left walkway, the ominous feeling started to increase, and my heart rate was starting to beat faster, and as I was walking back I started to hear faint footsteps behind me, it was a distance away but it was still audible. Still had to keep calm while it was still watching.

I soon found the left walkway and headed into it, with the footsteps still following me. I switched holding the lantern from my right arm to my left, since I had a feeling I might be attacked soon.

While still walking down the hallway, I reached a dead end where the cave seemed to have caved in. Knowing that I would've been attacked at this point, I quickly looked back with the lantern pointing back towards the entrance, only to find nothing there.

Looks like I was just being paranoid for no reason. I soon started to head towards the exit of the mine where I would go back into town and report that the mine had nothing in it.

I would've done that up until I reached a….dead end?

I then started to hear clicking sounds behind me, and as I looked back quickly, I looked at something that was so hideous and devoid of life, it looked like something straight out of Resident Evil. It was an undead humanoid monster that was on all four and had it's spine mutated to where it grew another one and looked part scorpion with its head on the "stinger", and where the head on the body was originally supposed to be was chopped off exposing the original spine.

I jumped back and prepared for combat, but since the only light source was the lantern I was holding, I had to rely completely on my devil arm.

This was probably one of the unlucky miners that died here. As I prepared for combat I started to hear what seemed to be words coming out of the head on the stinger, it said _"pl….ease….kill….me…"_ The poor bastard.

It tried to use its stinger with the head on it on me, and I managed to dodge it only a couple of times before grabbing it with the transparent devil arm that appeared next to my own. When it knew that I had its head, it started to struggle violently while its head was caught, to the point where it looked like it wanted to rip its own head off to be free from living this life.

I didn't have much of a choice, so I let go of the lantern where it fell on the ground and broke where I couldn't see a thing, and using my left arm to grab my still Level 2 exceeded Red Queen to cut off the head that was attached to the stinger.

When I did that it seemed that the body that was mutated caught on fire from the exceed, and behind it, showed more mutated miners that were just like the the one that it defeated.

Letting go of the head that was still in my hand, I was forced to kill the rest of the miners that were in pain. The mutated miners still said the same thing the last one said, _"Kill….me"_ , _"Put me down"_ , _"End my suffering!"_ Guess I'm being forced to set them free aren't I?

I exceeded my sword to level 3 since this was going to take a long time, and prepared myself to fight my way out.

(Reference Vid for fight: https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DRnMl3OHraX4ved=0ahUKEwiTg4Lny_XbAhWJL3wKHaGUCE8QwqsBCCcwAAusg=AOvVaw12zzPzUdriZ-PT3OZGz9u6)

I walked past the body that was still on fire and rushed towards the the rest of the humanoid mutations and swung my sword horizontally towards them while spinning to get any surrounding mutated (EX Streak - 2:43), while my sword was still hot and didn't burn me yet, I Started to do some combos.

I started with a downwards slash and an added two diagonal slashes after it, one going from top right to bottom left, and another in the reverse order while inverted, top left to bottom right, so that it made an X, and ended it with 3 horizontal slashes that got slightly diagonal with each horizontal slash (EX Red Queen Combo C - 2:21) no burn yet, so I was still good.

More started to rush towards me, to back them up I drug my sword on the ground and slashed upwards 3 times so any mutated would get sliced upward if they didn't move back (EX High Roller V1 2:36)

A couple of them started to move back, and what came from behind them was a bigger version of a mutated but it was bulkier, and had 3 stinger with 3 different heads. It then leaped at me trying to grab my arms with its head. I wanted to kill this quickly since it might be the the one leading the rest, if it falls the rest might back off…

Exceeding my sword to level 3 again, I tried to cut off one of its head to handicap it, but it was reflected by one of the other stingers attached to it. It then tried to use its stinger again but this time one came as the other retracted, so I tried to grab it with my devil arm and cut it off by trying to force it out of the body, and both of the heads tried to grab at me. What I did next was using the head in my hand to hit it against the other heads coming at me.

As soon as it got stunned from having one of its head collide hard with the other two, I took this opportunity to get up close to its body and try to kill it before it recovered, so I made a heavy downwards slash onto the body which made it fall to the ground and lose balance, and when it was on the ground I grabbed the Red Queen with both my normal and my devil arm and started hacking at the body until I could confirm that it was dead and then dig into it, blade facing out and slash it outwards (EX Red Queen Combo B - 2:12)

It then made a shrieking noise from dying and started to fade away, along with the 2nd dead end that I found. Since the other mutated miners didn't fade, I decided to escape the mine while I still could, following the light at the end of the tunnel.

I was still running when I finally found the exit, but when I got outside, some of them seemed to have follow me. Preparing for another battle, I decided to exceed my sword to level 2 since only 4 followed me out. What made things worse was the fact that the stone golems started to appear after, so that was 2 things I had to take care of…

...until the stone golems started to attack the mutated miners by grabbing them and pulling them apart, instantly killing them.

The mutated were dead in an instant, and the golems that pulled them apart started to grab rocks, dirt, and trees around them and started to plug the mine with it. As soon as it was closed and secured, the golems looked at me for a short while, it was probably because of my devil arm that made them concerned, but nonetheless, they left without a word…

As I started to calm down from the battle, I felt immense pain coming from my back and left hip, then fell to my knees. When I lifted my cloak and shirt to see what happened, I saw burn marks and very red skin. I looked at my card to check something, and what I saw started to make sense: my hp was at 150/850. My status said 'Burned' (Duration: 50 minutes), and I was now level 6. I guess I was under the effects of 'Power of Sparada.'

Seeing as I was exhausted from all the fighting and pain going on, I seemed to have blacked out where I was kneeling...

When I regained my consciousness, I was on the ground and it was sunset. I took out my card again, this time it showed my status as 'Hurt', while my Hp was regained to 350/850. Since it was a 10 mile journey back to town, I decided to take it easy for a bit and walk slowly to avoid hurting myself any further, so I picked myself up slowly and did just that.

I made it back to town after an hour and a half, and went to the Adventurers guild to turn in my rewards. I was limping a bit with my devil arm now in my sling again, so I relied on my sword to help as a walking stick to make sure I wouldn't fall and hurt myself any further.

As I finally made it to the Tavern, some of the adventurers there near the door saw me and helped me get to the eating area to rest, there I saw a dejected Kazuma looking at a salad with Aqua, Megumin, and the newly acquainted crusader, Darkness, who for some reason looks like she went through one hell of a battle where her armour and clothes were almost destroyed, but I doubt it. All 3 of them looks to be eating salads, which although was normal, seemed weird.

As soon as they saw me, they rushed over, to ask me what happened, "Hey, why do you look a bit like Darkness? It's as if you've fought an entire horde of monsters by yourself!" Kazuma said, then Darkness asked eagerly, "Did you really fight a horde of monsters on your own? Where did you find them!"

I really wanted to punch some sense into her, but seeing the condition I'm in, I'd Have to wait later, "Aqua, heal him before he passes out!" Kazuma said, Aqua who was still eating her salad, said in an annoyed tone, "Huh!? Why do I have to use my Divine powers to heal this crip-" She then got cut off my Kazuma who then smacked her in the back of her head and said, "You useless goddess! Can't you see a comrade in pain here!? There's no time for arguing!"

Kazuma's voice then seemed to be getting muffed a bit towards the end, and I started to lose consciousness again…


	7. Late Night Mission and Lashing out

Where….was I…

If I remember right….I was in the Tavern, I talked with 4 troublesome people, Kazuma smacked Aqua for her BS, ah right...I passed out again.

Gotta wake up soon, the farmers need me to get rid of the Frost Wolves…

Something feels soft...near my head….what...is this?

Feels….familiar…

I started to regain my conscious slowly.

"Ah! He's waking up!" someone said, the voice was still muffled a bit, but it sounded like Kazuma's voice

"I-I know that this isn't an appropriate time, but….C-Can he get off now?" Another voice said, sounded like the girl I want to backhand badly, and get off where? What type of BS did they do now…

I started to open my eyes and to notice that I was somehow sideways and laying on someone's lap, and after looking up to see who's lap it was, it was the knight who was looking away in embarrassment because of this situation. What didn't help this situation was the fact that her clothes were still ripped up, and that I was able to easily see some skin without looking hard.

I was startled for a bit and managed to knock myself on the ground and hit myself on the back the head.

Kazuma then helped me up when I hit the ground, saying "Hey, you shouldn't be moving so fast after getting healed! It wasn't easy getting this useless goddess to be useful for once" Aqua then tried to go after Kazuma after saying that, but was easily countered by Kazuma blocking her with one hand away from him.

"Ok sure, but quick question...why was my head on her lap?" I said in a tired, but confused voice, Kazuma gave a sly smile and in a voice low enough so only I could hear it, "So….did you enjoy your rest?"

"You scumbag…" I guess his nature is forever a bad-ish person

Darkness was now looking towards me, said in an uneasy voice, "W-Well, Kazuma did say that in your homeland, a ritual like that was the most efficient to heal a young man's wounds, so I only did what was instructed by him...did it work?" goddammit, not only is she a pervert with no control, but she's easy to manipulate...

I'd get back at Kazuma soon, but this time, I'll let him off the hook since it did remind me of something familiar, not sure what it was but, it felt nice, "Yeah, I guess it worked, thanks…" I said while looking away, why'd a situation like this have to happen…

"Also, are you okay? You looked like you were in pain when taking that rest, did something happen?" Megumin said, thinking back on what happened earlier, I started to remember the mutated that were begging for death, it made my stomach churn knowing that I had to kill something that isn't human anymore, but still have those types of feelings, it made me sick.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it…" I said in a voice calm enough to convince them, but internally I felt like puking…

"Are you sure? People who usually say that are the exact opposite", Kazuma asked, "What's your source?" I asked, he replied with "Myself...", shit he's good, but it didn't matter, he isn't obligated to care for my well being, none of them are...

I noticed it was night time, 'Shit I'm late!' I thought, I then took the Red Queen that was laid on the table, and started to head to the door, where Kazuma grabbed me by the back of my shirt collar "Hey where do you think you're going? You'd better not be going to a quest, it's late and you were passed out for 2 hours! Go get some real rest, and try again tomorrow!" Geez, this guy was persistent for a perverted kid…

"Fine, I'll head back to my hotel and get some rest…" I said in a "defeated" voice, Kazuma then looked at me for a while and said, "Alright, I'll believe you. Don't need you dying on me now, you're the only person I can talk to normally!" Like you can act normal

"Oh wait, gotta turn in my quest for the reward…" I said, "I'll be right back…" As I said going to the booth lady to turn in my quest, I took a small glance towards the group behind me and noticing him talking them in what looked to be a secret like manner, they're probably send someone to follow me and make sure I stay at the hotel. Of course he didn't believe my BS as easily as I thought.

I took my reward after it was presented towards me, and left the Tavern heading towards my hotel, as I was about 4-5 blocks down the street, I took another glance back towards the tavern, and I saw the group leave one by one.

I got to my hotel in 20 minutes, and went to my room to "sleep". After an hour and a half of waiting in silence, I went towards the balcony that was facing the entrance of the hotel and took a small peek looking at the outside, since it was night out, it was hard to see if anyone was hiding. Of course going out the front door is the worst choice, and going out the balcony might get me spotted by other people, or get me spotted from a blindspot. The only spot left was the window that looked out towards an alleyway, it was dark and had a lot of spots that could easily hide someone, but it was my only choice at this point.

I opened the window slowly and silently, there was a makeshift fire exit walkway that lead to a dumpster below. After scouting carefully for anyone hiding, the moment it looked clear I took the opportunity to silently step out of the window and close it before doing anything else. I then walked carefully to not make any sounds, until I reached the ground.

I then heard a voice coming from end of the alleyway and hid to make sure I didn't get spotted by whoever it was, being curious who was coming to an alleyway at this hour I took a small peek, and saw a blonde boy probably Kazuma's age, walking while staggering a bit towards the end of the alley. What he did next was surprising and uncomfortable since he started to take a piss near one of the dumpsters.

Seeing as I was already late for the quest, I considered going back to my room to actually rest and wait it out, but for some reason It irked me and I wanted to go out regardless of whatever happened to me. I never felt that way until now, why was this happening?

Seeing that there was another building ahead of me with a small ledge coming out of the balcony, I decided to try something to see if I can get around town easier without the risk of getting spotted by the group.

What I did next had a 50/50 chance of succeeding, so I could only hope that it would work and not have me fall to my death. I stood up, took my devil arm out of the sling, stood on the railings of the fire escape carefully so that I wouldn't fall, and leaped.

When I leaped, I made use of my extra 3ft jump, made my devil arm reach out to one of the ledges using Devil Snatch to see if I could grab ahold of the ledge and climb up to the rooftop…

...and it worked, somehow, my 50/50 chance actually came out in my favor and worked!

As I was still holding on to the ledge, and pulled myself up, I climbed up the building that was taller than the hotel for 5 minutes before finally reaching the top and laying there to take a rest…

I could've died….again….why do I keep doing these things that always jeopardizes my life in some way, I really need to stop doing this…

I then picked myself up from laying down and looked up, the moon was so big today, and the stars seemed a bit brighter.

It was a great sight to see, but sadly I had a job to do, so this would have to wait until I got back from the quest.

Taking out the quest log out of one of my cloak pockets, I started to head to the southeast side out town by jumping and Devil Snatching my way up and down the rooftops of the town. This was fun! Running fast, doing some illegitimate parkour, and exploring the town was really good at escaping your problems...

As I reached the southeast side of the town, I had to stop a moment to decide what to do next after reaching the edge. What was below me was the wall, and I was about 10 feet away from it, what made me stop was the fact that I needed a way to land on the outside of the walls without breaking my legs, and because there was nothing but plain land after the wall, this would be challenging.

Since there was no lower building under me to use to jump safely from, I had to jump from this distance. After about 5-8 minutes of thinking, I came up with a plan: First, I would jump far enough to go over the wall, and then when I was close enough to it, I would use my Devil Snatch to hold onto the ledge of the wall to break my fall, of course I would rebound into the wall because of physics and weight transferring, so to counter that I would dig my sword onto the ground to stop my momentum from crashing hard into the wall.

Of course there was no way to come back to the hotel when I would come back, but I'll think of something when I get back from the quest.

Alright, here goes nothing!

I jumped a little farther than what I wanted, but it was alright since I was still within Snatch Distance, so when I Snatched to the wall, I quicking got my sword dug into the ground and slid about 6 ft on the ground where I was able to not crash into the wall, so I stood up and let go of the wall. One thing I didn't take into account was the condition of the wall, since it left a small indent in the ledge where my hand was.

If this was the modern world, a security camera probably would've caught me, but since the most technologically advanced piece of equipment was probably my sword with the gears inside, I didn't have much to worry about.

I then started to jog straight towards the southeast of the wall, and hopefully make it to the farm in time, before the wolves had a chance to terrorize the farm and escape.

After a 30 minute jog, I found a small river, flowing south, seeing the opportunity to do so until the morning, I took a couple of sips from the river and splashed my face 2-3 times just to be refreshed from the jog, and to get my bearings a bit.

I then walked down the direction of the river to find a small Farm and house, with the lights still on. Might be the owner watching for the Frost Wolves, I should probably introduce myself before I get mistaken for a bandit, and hide my arm before I get targeted.

As I started to get closer to the Farm, the Wolves started to appear from the forest coming from the other side other river and started to freeze the river with each step it took getting closer to the farmer, it seems that the owner was unaware of it and the wolves took this opportunity to sneak up behind him and get an easy meal, not on my watch!

I then shouted, to the owner, "Watch Out!" the person seemed to have heard me since he got up and rushed in his house to grab a small sword and shield to defend himself with, I then started to sprint towards the wolves and Exceed my sword to level 1, just so I don't make the same mistake earlier.

I stood in front of his house to make sure the wolves wouldn't target him, I then told the owner, "Get in somewhere safe and don't come out until I tell you!" The owner then spoke in a familiar voice "Tryin' a be a showoff huh? Don't bite the dust yet kid!"

As soon as I heard a door close, I walked out about 4 feet away from the door, and the wolves surrounded me, trying to get me at an angle. I took my Devil Arm out of my sling and cracked a my knuckles knowing that I'll be taking my time with these wolves to blow off my anger. I threw my sling towards the door, knowing that I'd still need it in the future.

(Reference Vid: https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DRnMl3OHraX4ved=0ahUKEwiTg4Lny_XbAhWJL3wKHaGUCE8QwqsBCCcwAAusg=AOvVaw12zzPzUdriZ-PT3OZGz9u6)

There were 4 around me, one taking each side, and one of them tried to attack me from behind. I dodged it quickly, by jumping up and using Devil Snatch to grab its leg and pull it towards me and then grab it by its neck and slam it down as hard as I could (Buster - 4:40), it didn't die, but it was definitely hurt since part of its body started to crack and shatter.

As I was still in the air, I used both my hands to swing my sword downwards using the weight of the sword and the power of my arm to cleave the hurt wolf in half (Split - 0:47), it let out howl, and soon died.

1 down, 3 to go…

I then used my Devil Snatch again to grab one of the tails of the wolves that was nearby and slam it repeatedly on the ground over and over about 4 times, before tossing it at one of the wolves that was still standing. The wolf that got thrown shattered upon impact, and the wolf that was hit by the shattered wolf was pinned down since the impact blew off one of its legs. I decided to rush at it with my Exceeded Red Queen and finish it off (Rush at 1:49 - Streak EX)

1 left, gotta finish this, go home, and get my reward…

That would've been the plan, but more of them started to appear from the forest, and in greater number.

So I readied myself again for fighting 7 more wolves. Exceeded my sword to level 1 again, and countered 2 of the wolves that was charging at me from both sides. For one of the wolves that was coming towards my left, I drug my sword on the ground and slashed it upwards decapitating the wolf (High Roller V1 - 1:47), and for the one on the right I dug the tip of myblade into the forehead of the wolf, shattering the head.

As soon as those two were dead, 4 more came out from the forest, and those 4 charged at me in full force. I then swung my sword downwards and diagonally going from top right to bottom left, and doing the same thing but in reverse and inverted, so it looked like an X, and soon slashing horizontally 3 times, with each slash getting slightly diagonal (Red Queen Combo C)

I did this combo just so I was able to hit all 4 at once and knock back any that I would've possibly missed. The result of that combo, killed 1 wolf, injured two of them by making them lose a front paw, and one of them dodging the attack.

And of course, 3 more wolves, popped up in place of the injured and dead frost wolf. This was frustrating!

In a sense I was sick of this, having to kill repeatedly one after another, and getting nowhere from more of them coming to take one's place!

I then exceeded my sword to Level 3, at this point I didn't care about the consequences! I Was just sick of living this life of constant killing that was making me lose my humanity slowly! I'm tired of feeling this pain!

I let out a war cry as I rushed towards the mob of wolves with both my Exceeded level 3 sword and Devil Bringer. I don't know if this was also the effect of 'Power of Sparada', but one thing's for sure, If I'm going down right now, I plan on taking as many down with me!

 _Dawn~_

It was dawn when I fought off the horde of wolves, I felt exhausted, emotionally, physically, and mentally. I was covered in what looks to be Frost wolf blood, which would be white blood, but cold. course some of my blood was mixed in with it, but it didn't matter. I held them off, the farm is safe, along with the owner. I did my job, that's all that mattered…

I stood there in the middle of the farm, ice shards everywhere, body parts that looks like wolves could be seen, but it wasn't that noticeable. My clothes were tattered, my cloaked was ripped, so my left sleeve was no longer there, and my cloak now went up to my hips instead of my thighs. There was a claw mark on my shirt that had traces of blood on the edges, and my left arm was cut up multiple times, it had bite marks and claw marks of different shapes and sizes.

The Red Queen was resting in the ground where it was stabbed, and was emitting steam, looks like I overcooked it bit. My Devil Arm was like my left arm with scratches, claw marks, and bites marks, but they seemed to be regenerating slowing and fading out.

I walked towards the house door to pick up my sling only to see it being handed to me by the farm owner, and to my surprise, it was the same old man who who I met first when I got teleported to this town.

Well, looks like my secret is out. I looked at the old man who was looking into my eyes that were void of all life in them, and said in a voice as if someone died, "Come inside son, you've done enough for today. Let me whip ya up some grub."

I didn't have much of a choice at this point...

I was sitting in the living room where I had my sling on, since I wasn't sure if anyone else was in the house, the old man looked at me and said, "There's no one else in the house 'sides me, no need to hide it anymore." I looked at him for a bit, and then took my sling off exposing my arm to him. He then faced me after making some breakfast, it was some regular eggs, toast, and 3 generous slices of ham. He then set the plate in front of me and handed me a fork, "Eat up." I took the fork from him and started to eat.

I started to tear up a bit since the gentle taste of it reminded me of my mom's cooking when I was younger.

"So, mind tellin' me what THAT's all about?" The old man asked, as he was pointing to my arm. I wiped some of my tears away, with my left hand, and replied sadly "I can't, sorry..." No one would believe me if I Told them that I got a devil arm from the gods as a gift, well except other reincarnated like me and Kazuma.

"Alright, if ya can't tell me that, then tell me, what's ya problem? What's eatin' at ya?" he asked

What's eating at me….I don't think I even know the answer to that question, there's too many answer to choose from….

"I...don't know," I said, "There's a lot of emotions melding together, I don't know what's what anymore"

"Well, it's early mornin', so this old man's got some time…" He said calmly

Time huh?

I then finished the breakfast given to me, and he said "Well then, let's start from the beginning…"

With a couple of tweaks to my backstory where I removed the "Meeting Eris" part, since I didn't want him to get the wrong message, I told him who I was, where I came from, and what I did.

While I sat there next to him, he was soaking up all the info with a cup of coffee with him, I was basically spilling my heart of most of the emotions bottled up from the moment my dad left to last night.

"Well, that's one of the more interestin' stories I've heard in my day, but I guess I can count it true since I don't feel a hint of lie from ya. But, what I have to say from all this is, to rely on yer newly found friends a little bit more. This old coot barely has some years left under his belt, it's best if ya go to them for these problems, no one can survive this cruel world alone, if they tried they might've lashed out like you did last night. Now, do me a favor, get some rest, talk this out wit yer friends, and put yer trust in them. You never know who might be there 'til the very end with ya, might be one of them, might not be, all we can do is try to not give up, Can ya do that for me? And if not me, at least for yer ma?" the old man asked

This old man who I barely knew was probably the biggest father figure I had, in years. It felt nice to have someone like this, even though he'd be 6ft under in a couple of years, I can't help but feel like this old man was more of a father than my actual father.

I started to have tears form in my eyes for a bit, but I wiped them out with my arm, and gave the old man determined smile, and said, "Sure, but I won't be able to make any promises"

I was never too good with trying to make friends, both in Japan and in this world. Because of work and my mother's financial problems I always went home to study, do well in school, always worked in the summer, and hung out by myself because of my schedule.

Because I didn't have much friends to rely on, I Kept all my emotions bottled up, and didn't want to bother with finding any friends, always underappreciated myself since I was too busy with other things to focus on my own wellbeing.

I guess this can be called a 2nd chance, I might be able to experience things I probably would've never experienced back in Japan. I should've listened to her and enjoyed my youth like she said, but I was too stubborn.

I then stood up from the chair, and the old man said, "Well you better be off and claim yer reward, I'll see ya when I see ya." He started to clean the dishes and start his work with the farm, I put my sling back on and was about to leave before asking one last question, "Hey, where's your family if you're all alone here?" he answered with, "I don't have a family anymore, wife died years ago, and children left to be professional adventurers, they never wrote back once. I wrote 'terrorizing my family' because if I just wrote 'a single old man in farm', there'd be less people going out of their way to help. You get the point? Now go on, sun won't stay up forever."

This old man...oh well, it didn't matter, my conscious was sort of cleared, still had things bottled up, but for the most part, they can still be bottled up as long as I empty it out every once in awhile.

I still had to meet up with my party to be there to support them, so they'd be there to support me when I need it.

I then walked out of the house where the Frost parts and shards were now melted, and my Red Queen was not steaming anymore. I dug it out of the ground and placed it on my back. I then made my journey back to the town where I would confront my party.

I took a look at my adventurer card where it show the amount of frost wolves that I killed out of rage, and it showed 103. Looking at my stats, it seems that some of them have improved a bit even without putting skill points in them:

General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Strength : 28 Status--Reassured

Vitality : 250/1000 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 150

Stamina : 22

Defense : 25

Agility : 23

Luck : 22

Faith : 10

Dexterity : 22

Will : 40

Intelligence : 29

As I was now level 11 from last night, I decided to use some of my unused skill points that I forgot about and put them into some of the skills and attributes I have while I made my way back to Axel town.

(I'm not sure how I feel about these chapters, I feel like I rushed this too much and that the "growth" was too unnatural, I don't know, could be me. let me know how you feel and it might be able to improve my writing by 1%)


	8. Early Morning Return and Money Issues

The wind blew gently against my face, and the sun was still on the sidelines slowing rising up from being on the other side of the world. The grass that I was walking on was short enough to make it easy to run or walk in, but tall enough where it barely reached my shins.

The sky was it mix of candy red, a blush tone of pink, and an orange-yellow mix being created from the sun. There was still the purple-ish/blue tone that was ahead of me in the sky as I was walking towards the town, while the sun was rising behind me.

I was still upgrading my skills on my card thinking about future possibilities and looking through different skills to see whether upgrading one is better than the other. I'd be putting more skills towards defense and agility to increase my chances of survival, and hopefully learn not to get myself near death again in a long time.

I'd also have to upgrade my arm more since I won't be able to hide it from the group forever, it will happen, and how they decide to take it will decide whether or not I go solo, or continue to be in the party. It's just like the old man said, gotta put more faith them, trust them to an extent.

The situation is different now, I'm facing death everyday, I need people to trust, I'm not in Japan anymore, there is no authority to continuously help me around the clock since I'm part of the Authority, and there are people who need the Authority to help them.

I then took out my necklace from inside of my shirt, and held it tight with my right hand. I gotta keep going and not give up, if she knew what I was doing and saw how powerful I've become to the point where I can sort of protect myself alone, I don't think she's want me to take the cowards way out in this world, and neither would I.

I was slowly getting near the walls of the town and took one last look at my card seeing all the choices I made:

Red Queen:

Damage multiplier - x1.2 (Max. x5.0) Upgrade: 1 point per x0.1 **(2pts)**

Exceed Bonus - x1.5 (Max 2.0) Increased Every 5 levels by 0.1

Range - 1 meter (Max 5 meters) Upgrade: 1/2 a meter per 5 points

Swing speed - 103% (Max 150%) Upgrade: 1% per 1 point **(3pts)**

Knockback - x1.2 (Max x2.0) Increases as Red Queen receives upgrades

Demonic Cleanser: When held with the Devil Bringer, impact is increased by x1.5 and damage is increased by x1.5 in exchange for swing speed ( -25%)

Berial's Flames from the Fire Hell: When Red Queen is Exceeded beyond level 1, flames get more deadlier at the cost of 20% chance of inflicting self fire damage on level 2, and 40% when on level 3

Devil Bringer

(Buster) Strength - 125% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5% **(5pts)**

Lift Strength - 68 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 7 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet **(2pts)**

Treasure Detection - Devil arm will glow brightly when near treasures or secret items within 10ft, can only be used when concentrating solely on the arm.

Shield of Credo - The Devil Bringer is now able to hold an enemy and use it as a shield, 40% chance of it working. Enemy can only be lifted if it's within the Lift Strength.

Bael's Cold Grip - When an enemy is being held on as a shield, it will not be able fight back for 5 minutes. Enemies attacking the shield has 25% chance of getting frost damage, and if the shielded enemy is slammed, it will shatter from 100% frost damage.

Unyielding strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Power of Sparada: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% vitality

25% strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

Abilities

Sprint Speed - 111% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 32)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

??? - ??? (Requirements Unknown)

Swordsman

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x1.2 (Max 2.0) Upgrade is x0.1 per point

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 30% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 15

MP Usage reduction with swords - 5% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 10% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 12.5% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Strength : 32 **(4pts)** \-- Status--Reassured

Vitality : 250/1000 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 150

Stamina : 23 **(1pts)**

Defense : 32 **(7pts)**

Agility : 27 **(4pts)**

Luck : 22

Faith : 10

Dexterity : 22

Will : 40

Intelligence : 29

I used all 28 of my skill points that I earned from the only 4 days that I was here for, and was sort of surprised since it didn't seem like leveling up was a problem….oh wait, I was being an edge-lord, and decided to do Quests on my own, kill a boss, and probably made Frost Wolves extinct, so a normal adventurer wouldn't be this reckless or idiotic as I am…

I chuckled a bit to myself, I'm constantly facepalming and undermining that misfit group because of how far all of them are from being normal, but I guess I'm no different if I keep doing things that nearly get me killed….

Speaking about those guys, I'm gonna have to apologize them for sort of breaking the unspoken promise of doing things on my own. But, will they even listen to me, or even talk to me after doing shit like this? Yeah, they probably will, something small like this shouldn't be that bad, I hope.

My eyelids were now starting to get very heavy, and for a moment I had no clue why, but then I understood...I didn't get any sleep whatsoever since I was busy taking out the Frost Wolves and venting out my emotions…

….Well it looks like I'm going to be sleeping for the whole day, so I should find Kazuma quick and get some sleep before I Start to hallucinate from being sleep deprived.

I was now near the gate where although the gate was open for adventurers to get the early worm, there didn't seem to be any guards there.

I didn't take a second look at the entrance and headed straight towards the Tavern where I hoped that the group was there just so I could apologise quickly and get to sleep asap.

Compared to last night where I was jumping on and off rooftops and going at a rapid pace, it seemed to take forever just to get to the tavern where although there was a couple of adventurers, the group of identifiable misfits didn't seem to be there, I wondered if I was too early so I decided to go the the booth area to turn in my quest.

The moment the booth woman saw me it took her a moment to understand what I said and hand me my rewards slowly. I was still a complete mess after last night, where I was covered in blood, had my clothes sort of torn up, and was sleep deprived. I guess some of the people outside was also looking at me in shock, but I didn't seem to mind them.

As I got my reward, I waited in the eating area for about an hour or two, and decided to apologise to them later. I went back to my hotel where I was still getting stared at by people thinking whether or not if I was still alive.

When I reached the entrance of the hotel I started to hear faint voices from the front desk, and they seemed familiar. I hid near the doorway and listened in closely on the conversation, "Hey Mr. hotel man, do you know where a handicapped adventurer is staying at? He's our friends and we wanted to wake him up early to do some quests, but don't know what room number he has." Said what seemed to be Kazuma, wait they didn't know what room number I was staying at, and the hotel?

How would they be able to keep a watch in me if they didn't….

...It then hit me, HARD…

None of them were actually watching me last night, none of them were outposted near the hotel to stop me from going out alone, I WAS BEING PARANOID FOR NO REASON! KAZUMA ACTUALLY TRUSTED ME AND I BLEW IT OFF!

I then moaned a bit from what I then recently learned, the reason for why they thought I was still in my room. I guess my moan was a little bit louder than it seemed to be since Kazuma looked at the direction I was at, and as he looked at me, he had this face of no reaction, like a parent knowing their child snuck out to see some kind of concert and just when they thought they outsmarted them, they get shut down before making it back to the house…

The rest of them soon looked over where Kazuma was looking at, and soon had the same expression. Please stop that, it hurts…

I then said in a sort of awkward tone, "Hey guys…..you're uh….very early…"

I fucked up didn't I….?

We went up to my room to have a private conversation, and after an hour and a half of explaining myself and apologizing, the group seemed to partly accept my apology:

Kazuma was still bitter about the broken trust and didn't talk much after 40 minutes, but after giving him a little bit of my reward money, I seemed to have completely regained his trust, cheap bastard…

Aqua seemed to have healed me while lecturing me on how pathetic I was, even as a cripple, and was spouting random BS on how the axis cult would've never gotten a scratch on them from such a "little spar from wild animals", and was continuing to spout on how great the Axis cult was, while I ignoring her from the moment she called me cripple….again...

Darkness was being Darkness, asking me a lot of questions on how it felt being attacked by multiple animals at once, and asking how much it hurts to be bitten, clawed, and almost mauled to death. I would still hold back on wanting to backhand her, I really wanted to...

Megumin on the other hand seemed to be talking to her on her own in the corner while doing various poses with her staff and saying "explosion" silently. It seemed she was practicing her routine for when she uses her once a day spell, still the glass canon.

I started to laugh at bit about this situation, and the rest of them seem to smile at me when they saw me laugh, I guess this was their first time hearing me laugh. I then started to nod off from the sleep deprivation.

It looks like I was at my limit for staying up, and my body was starting to shut down. The last thing I saw before nodding off was the surprised faces of the 4 of them seeing me about to crash before going into a deep sleep.

 _When Tsukiyo nodded off and was about to fall on the ground to sleep, it seems that both Darkness and Kazuma caught him before he was able to hit the ground. What they did next was put him in bed after seeing how exhausted he was. So they took his sword off his back, placed it on the side, and tossed him in his bed._

 _Although they (Aqua and Kazuma) were tempted to take off his sling and see his broken arm, they decided to respect his privacy and keep it on. They wrapped his blanket around him and soon left his room, to let him sleep peacefully._

 _It would be two days before Tsukiyo would wake up…_

 _This Power….it's not enough!_

Why do you still want more? And who are you?

 _….if he can do it….then so can I!_

Who is he? You're not explaining anything!

 _You're still too weak for me to appear. Might controls everything, and without strength, you cannot protect anything; let alone yourself!_

Still not gonna answer my question…

 _My name is- - - - - -_

I then woke up from what seems to be a dream, or encounter with the same voice that I heard days ago, and I say days ago since I'm not sure of how long I slept. I looked around the room I was in, my sword was in the side of the bed, my boots were the side of the bed, my cloak was on the small table, and thankfully my sling was still on.

The cuts, bite marks, and claw marks on my arm were not bloody anymore, but the scars were faded, and slightly visible. My cloak was sort of fixed where the cape part of it was back to it original length, but the left sleeve was untouched, and the tatters in my clothes seemed to be fixed, with the exception of the claw mark in my shirt.

I then got up from the bed and tried to walk but was having a hard time doing so, how long was I asleep? It's like a woke up from a coma!

Looking outside, it was cloudy, and if I was gonna guess on what time it was I would say the afternoon.

Seeing as I was no longer sleep deprived, and well rested, I decided to head to the Tavern. There wasn't much to do in this world other than work or socialize, so I didn't have too many options for relaxation.

I put my cloak on that was on the table that now had a hood, and put it on. My boots seemed to be the same but slightly cleaner, and my sword was still the same. I exited my room and hotel, and started making my way to the Tavern.

It was a strange sight to see when the Town had cloudy weather, people were wearing now sleeved shirts and vests, and women were no longer wearing short/medium dresses and skirts. I guess it was about to be fall, so it was a no brainer in this situation.

I took my time when walking towards the Tavern, and it seems that there was less adventurers than usual in the Town, was it because of the weather? No, it couldn't be, something like this is nothing, only snow and heat waves would be strong enough to drive away adventurers, especially when there is no snow plows, A/C, heaters, or the deadly weapon the kotatsu…

When I finally reached the Tavern, it was almost empty just like when I came back from the old man's farmhouse in the early morning. I was about to reach the eating area when the booth lady called out to me "Excuse me, young man can you please come over here for a moment?"

I walked towards the booth lady who called out to me, I was wondering what she wanted since I haven't done anything dangerous….yet...

When I was now in front of her and asked what she wanted, she said, "It's good to see that you're still alive after what happened a couple of days ago, but I wanted to tell you something I tried to tell you before. The reason why I couldn't tell you was because I was still in shock from your condition, but now I have a chance to tell you."

She then cleared her throat, and looked at me sadly "Look, you shouldn't try and go off on your own like that, a lot of adventurers die quickly from it, and you were just about to be one of them. I've heard lots of stories about veteran adventurers dying from their arrogance and power, but for it to happen to someone as young as you are, it would be disheartening. That's why I told you from the beginning to find a party, you've got a whole life ahead of you, no need for you to waste it for some dumb reason, ok? That's all I wanted to say, but now that you found a party, it looks like you have someone to watch your back, and you'll be able to watch theirs. So trust them and work together, you won't die easily if you got a team with you."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the advice, and sorry for making you worry." I said to the blonde booth lady. "Oh! One more thing, and I cannot stress this enough," I looked back at the booth lady who then spoke in a tired tone, "Please, look over Kazuma, you never know what kind of trouble he can cause." I replied with, "Don't worry, I'm already aware of his personality…."

I then resumed my walk towards the eating area, where there seemed to be only 5-7 adventurers here, along with Darkness and Aqua in a booth where they seemed to be looking out the window. I walked up to them and asked "Where's Pervert 1 and Explosion girl?" They seemed surprised that I was there, hey I just went into a mini coma, I haven't died and gotten resurrected.

Aqua said "Hey! You're alive!" I'm not sure how to take that…

I then replied back, "Of course I am, it's not like I bled out, I just fell asleep."

"Kazuma and Megumin went somewhere outside of town to cast off explosion magic." Aqua said, I asked in a confused manner, "Won't we need the explosion of we're going to do quests?"

Darkness then spoke up "Apparently we can't do any quests, Kazuma suggested that we take it easy for a while since all of the quests left on the board are high level ones. I don't see the problem of taking them on though, I'm pretty sure I can take them!" Darkness said proudly as she soon started to pant softly. Looks like he still has common sense.

"What about money? Without the quests, you and Kazuma won't be able to live properly" I asked Aqua, she then had a stern look on and asked, "Hey, why did you only call me and Kazuma out? What about Darkness and Megumin?"

"You guys know what you're capable of. It shouldn't be a surprise that I only called you guys out, Darkness and Megumin are almost on the same boat, but they still have some use you know?" I said in a monotone like voice, I know the old man said to trust my teammates more, but he doesn't really understand who these people are.

Aqua then said in a cheery voice "Hey, you know I Always thought you were pretty co-" I cut her off by saying "Say anymore and I'll dropkick you, you're not getting a single coin from me"

She then jumped to me and latched on my leg, and started to beg, "Please! I want to survive! What kind of person are you to let a beautiful girl like me starve!" She started wail when she said that, "Who said I considered you Beautiful, or a girl at the least?" I answered coldly, that some payback for calling me a cripple!

Aqua looked at me about to cry and Darkness was there taking it all in, I then continued "Besides! What about the old job you and Kazuma had before being an adventurer! Go there! You'll still get money!"

I heard the Tavern doors open, and after looking back to see who it was. It appeared to be Kazuma who was piggybacking Megumin who was holding her staff tightly with a cool smile on. As soon as Kazuma saw me, he walked quickly over to the 3 of us were and smile saying "Hey You're awake! How do you feel? And what's she trying to do now?" He said the last sentence in an annoyed tone, almost as if this "Act" of hers was already seen…

"Begging" I said, Kazuma then looked down at Aqua who was still on the verge of tears and still locked onto my legs, and snickered for a bit. This seemed to set Aqua off a bit since she went from sad to pissed in less than a split second, and tried to attack Kazuma who still had Megumin on his back. Me and Darkness found this funny since we both tried to hold back our laugher, well Darkness held back, I was just laughing quietly enough to have them not notice me.

After 5 minutes of Aqua trying to attack and end it with the both of them out of breath, they seemed to settle down and sit down in the booth where Darkness and I were.

"So tell me, What happened when I was asleep for the past couple of days?" I asked, Kazuma answered with "Well, first off we tried to complete a quest that involved a Lich, which we failed, we checked up on you 4 times to see if you would wake up, and I got myself some new gear." I just noticed that Kazuma was not in his tracksuit anymore, but in what looks to be a grey shirt with tan pants, and a green short cape that covered his shoulders, he actually looked like a real adventurer and not a Weeaboo-Wannabe version of an adventurer.

Megumin who was on the other side of the table was motionless, and said "Kazuma was the one freaking out the most, saying that you went into a coma. Even went far enough to repair your cloak and sew a bit of your clothes back"

I then looked at Kazuma who was now glaring at Megumin who just revealed an interesting bit of info, but nonetheless, was happy for the help "Thanks Kazuma, I guess you can be a reliable guy from time to time"

Kazuma then looked at me and started to rub the back of his head and grin while saying "Hey, it's no problem that's what friends d-Hey, what do mean from time to time…" He started to glare at me who snuck the insult inside the compliment. "By the way how much did it cost to fix my cloak? It looks like it was done professionally…"

Kazuma then said " Oh, I just took some of your money to repair it, along with your pants"

Hold on….what?

It was my turn to do the glaring, "You know there is such thing as personal space right? If you did anymore than that I would've decked you in the face just now, HOW MUCH DID THE REPAIR COST?" I asked in a serious voice

Kazuma then said in a low voice that got lower as he went on "Oh you know, just...about half...your money…."

I checked my money pouch that I had on me and counted the amount of eris I had, and just like I thought, I had about 150,000 eris left of the 300,000 I earned, and 40,000 I bribed Kazuma with.

I then stood up and started to crack my left hands fingers with my thumb, while glaring at Kazuma, he seemed to be frightened because the moment I stood up, he stood up quickly and backed away a couple of steps.

He tried to negotiate with me, probably to stall for time "Hey, hey, hey! I'll pay you back promise, just give me a month or two! I'll pay you back double, please don't hurt me! Aqua, Darkness help!"

I then said in a voice that could kill if it was possible "Why did it cost so much to repair some pieces of fabric? Huh?"

Kazuma then said lowly, "Well, I used some of that money to buy these clothes so-" I didn't give Kazuma the privilege to finish his sentence as I drop kicked him, he let out a pained scream and tried to run when he recovered from the drop kick.

I was so tempted to pull my Devil arm out to snatch his leg, but since I was close enough to grab him, I put him in a chokehold with left arm and closed the gap between his neck and any empty space to make sure he gets my message, "I'll let you go, but...you're gonna have to work back the money that you blew starting NOW, got it?" I then started to choke him a bit, and he squealed out "YES, Yes! I'll earn the money! please...Air…"

I then let him go as he was about to turn purple and started breathing heavily, I breathed in deeply and exhaled 3 times before turning to the girls, 2 of them looked apathetic since they probably knew Kazuma had it coming, and one of them was smiling at what just happened.

Darkness then tried to speak, but I cut her off while looking at her "No. Just….No", She then looked pleased saying "To reject me so quicking without even asking, this party is great!" I'm sorry old man, Mom. I don't think I'll be able to keep that promise of trusting my teammates…

I then walked away from the group, Megumin asking "where are you going?", I replied with "To get a job at this place for the moment. If we can't do the high level quests, then I'll earn back some of my money Kazuma blew."

I've worked in a couple of restaurants before, so a place this place isn't that big compared to some places in the Shinjuku area.

I went to the booth where the blonde lady was and asked for a temporary job here, It seemed I chose a good time to apply since one of the waiters was in a family emergency at the moment.

So for the next week I would be working at the tavern as a waiter, working from dusk until near midnight, getting about 7-8 hours of sleep. Nothing I couldn't handle….

What I couldn't handle on the other hand, was the shit storm that Kazuma and Megumin would bring to the town...

(Note: In the beginning where I was describing the scenery, If you thought that putting the sun rising behind MC-kun was for dramatic/badass effect, then you're wrong. I legit had to look up the direction the sun sets and rises just to make it real-ish. Because the sun rose from the East, where the farm was, the season is displayed as September or the beginning of fall season, and because Tsukiyo was going back, he headed West, away from the sunset. I don't mean to sound _T R I G G E R E D_ or a know it all, but I didn't want to send the wrong message by using cliche tropes...

Sauce: http/solar-center./AO/sunrise.html)


	9. Working and a Pissed Off Horsemen

How….did this go to shit…..so quickly….

I expected this much from Kazuma, but for Megumin to join in too….I…

...don't know what to say….

\--

 _~1 Week prior to Shitstorm~_

It's been a week since I applied for the temporary job at the Tavern, so far it's been pretty good.

I've become friendlier and closer to the staff members and kitchen staff. It must've been a long time since someone new has joined the staff since they sort of forgot that I was there as a temp, and would usually go do their own thing that they'd do when it's a normal day.

Having this type of job was sort of nice since it was a break from all the murder, bloodshed, and fast adrenaline that you'd get from a regular mission. I even got a new set of clothes to wear when working here. I was given black pants that was somewhat formal, but easy to move around in paired with a yellow and white long-sleeved shirt that had a similar design that the booth women would wear, but was designed for men. To top it all off I was given a white bandana by one of the chefs yesterday for surviving almost a week of 15 hours of work per day, which was more than what I could've handled, but somehow survived.

This really reminded me of home, in a sense. My last job before dying was working at a small family owned restaurant. I knew one of the chef's personally since he was the cooking instructor at my school, he saw how I was working every summer to help pay for bills with my mother and gave me a chance to work at his uncles with him. I took up the offer not knowing that I'd learn a couple of neat tricks and recipes for cooking for when I'd eventually live alone.

I wonder how he was doing now after probably learning that I'd died...I started to feel the same swelling up feeling that clouded my heart when I got here and started living alone for the first time.

The feeling lingered on for a few moments until I took a deep breath and exhaled. Keep it together, you don't want to disappoint everyone here just because of a feeling don't you?

I pulled myself together and for the moment I was fine, but I needed a healthier method to take care of these feelings. Venting out on monster won't do any good.

As I was trying to keep my emotions in check, Linda, who was also known as the blonde booth lady, came up from behind me and tapped my shoulder. We were both on the middle of the eating area where there wasn't an adventurer in sight since the tavern hadn't open yet.

"Are you okay? You seemed to be spacing out. Anything on your mind?" She asked concerning my wellbeing

"Oh, I'm fine just thinking about the past for a bit. I'm just being a bit moody after not seeing my mother and brother for a what seems to be a long time." I said, even though it technically been almost 2 weeks…

"Well try not to be too moody, it's not good for your health. I told you already, if you want to I can listen to your problems and help you out. You've already done more than anyone can ask for this past week." she said in a calm, but sort of relaxed tone. She really is a nice person.

"Nah, I don't need to be your wasting your time. I can keep my emotions in check pretty well for the most part, it's just getting rid of them is the only problem." I said while sort of looking outside the window.

It was still morning. The sky had the familiar shade of pink/red that I saw at the beginning of every shift, and it soon darken to black when I ended it.

"Geez, why do adolescents at this age have to be so secretive when it comes to their feelings? It won't make women flock towards them, quite the opposite as a matter of fact…" Linda said as as she had a tired expression on.

I wish I knew the answer for that just as much as she does.

She sigh slightly and starts to head out of the eating are to head to the booth where she'd spend most of the day either talking to adventurers dealing with payment or newcomers.

Occasionally we'd have that one guy who drinks too much and starts to flirt with the booth women, then I'd have to kindly ask him to leave before choke holding him and going full bouncer mode. I may be a waiter for the moment, but I was still an adventurer dammit!

Things were surprisingly normal for the week, even with Kazuma and Megumin doing their daily explosions, and Aqua and Darkness doing whatever they do with their spare time, nothing seems to be out of the ordinary or borderline insane. It was actually peaceful…

But that's what made me terrified, it was TOO peaceful…

Ever since my first job when I was 15, I learned the hard way that whenever a situation was too calm, a shitstorm would come to fuck your day up, and borderline ruin it. It gave me trauma since my first job was in a factory where I was a garbage boy.

I then started to hear the loud voices of the adventurers as they started to pile in one by one going to the Quest Board, eating area, and bar. Since I was assigned to the eating area, I quickly went up to the first seated table of adventurers and asked for their order, after I got their order, I would head to the kitchen to relay the order. When the food was made, I would take the plates to them with my left arm either having 1-2 plates, and deliver it to them. When they finished eating and left, I'd have to wash the table and continue the cycle for the rest of the day, and sometimes open a bottle of wine to a rich adventurer or Aqua.

I was getting sort of comfortable with my position, and almost forgot that I was an adventurer at one point.

….Until it came, the shitstorm that I was predicting came during the afternoon right after my break finished.

I heard Linda's voice saying "Emergency Broadcast! Emergency Broadcast! All adventurers come to the main gate, and be ready for combat! This is NOT a drill!" in a panicked tone, using the makeshift megaphone that was on top of the Tavern.

I went up to her when she stopped, and asked "Hey, what going on? What Happening?" in a concerned voice, I knew from her tone of voice that this wasn't something similar to the cabbages

She then turned to me and told me what was going on, I rushed to the Men's locker room to grab my sword from my locker, and dashed towards the main gate along with countless other adventurers, both men and women in all sort of armour going from light weight thief to fully armoured Swordsmen and Heavy Axe users.

When we got to the from gate I saw what Linda described as a Dullahan, a.k.a a headless horsemen.

It seemed that Kazuma and the rest of the party got here right before me, and looked ahead towards the Dullahan.

He was in full black heavy armour that looked like it could cut you just from looking at it, and was holding its spartan-like armoured head in it's left arm, only having 1 visible red eye looking straight towards us. The horse it was riding on looked undead, and had armour on it similar to what the Dullahan wore.

It then spoke in a voice that was pissed saying "Tell me….who's the insane idiot that keep using explosion magic towards my castle!" The Dullahan roared.

No….please no…. don't tell me…

"EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. It's one explosion after the other! I wasn't even sending out troops to attack you since you don't even have the attack power to rival me all together! So I didn't want to waste my time! But NO! It seems to me that there is one experienced magic user here that's able to use a spell as advanced as Explosion magic! So Tell Me! Who is it? WHO!" The Dullahan shouted as he pointed his giant dark blue buster sword towards us.

I then looked over to Kazuma who was frozen in place, while Megumin was trembling behind Kazuma...why…

...why do you guys gotta cause so much trouble…

"I am a boss of the demon king's army, although I take it that all of you may be slain in the future from battle or natural causes, I won't hesitate to shorten those experiences if you refuse to tell me who the culprit is!"

People started to whisper together and come to a conclusion

"Explosion magic wouldn't that be…"

"It can't be the little girl with the staff right?"

"It's the one with screw loose, isn't it!?"

My peaceful time, it's slowly fading out from my dreams….

People started to turn over to my direction where Megumin was hiding behind Kazuma, and said in a trembling voice "E-E-Explosion Magic? H-Ha...haha, F-Funny right guys? I-I can't use E-E-Explosion magic…" She tried to deny as all eyes were on her

I asked Kazuma in a cold voice, "Where were you guys aiming at for the past week…" He slowly turned to my direction, and said in a low voice "an abandoned castle…"

Fuck…

Megumin then took a deep breath and started to walked towards the Dullahan, hey she's not serious is she?? Dammit she is!

What followed behind her was the rest of us, and when she stopped she made one of her famous speeches that she always said during a battle.

"M-My name is Megumin! I am archwizard that has mastered Explosion spells!" Megumin said as she was trying to calming say while in a pose.

"Are you mocking me? What kind of name is Megumin?" The Dullahan retorted, I'd ask the same thing if Kazuma didn't beat me to it…

"No! I'm not!" Megumin said as she started to get embarrassed from the Dullahans questions, she then stated boldly "I am from the Crismon magic clan! I am an elite from this town that lured you out of your castle to take you down along with my comrades! And you took the bait! Get ready to prepare for your demise!"

HEY, leave me of out of your bullshit! Anyone sane enough would come out of their castle to see who was bombarding it! It's not a tactical move! USE. SOME. COMMON. SENSE.

I turned towards Kazuma and whispered towards him "Did you know any of this!? Was this really a plan, or she just bullshitting? Please tell me she's Bullshitting!"

"This is the first time I've heard her say that! She was just playing around and said that she'd die from not casting explosion magic everyday! I just brought her near the castle and let her do her thing!" Kazuma explained

"Did you ever consider the consequences of her explosion magic!? She's gonna get us killed!" I said back to Kazuma, but Aqua chimed in and said "Hey, not so loud! She's actually has some adventurers backing her up with this! She hasn't used her spell yet, so we still have an escape plan! Let's just see how this goes for now!"

I didn't agree with what aqua told us, but had to listen since we didn't have much of a plan as of right now.

The Dullahan was still in the same spot and said, "A Crimson demon huh, I've heard of you guys. I guess you really do have weird names…" The Dullahan then snickered for a bit

Megumin seemed to take offense to that and asked "Hey! You've got a problem with my name!?"

Shut UP! Don't make things worse over your stupid name!

The Dullahan then turned away and said, "I don't have time to waste on low level weaklings like you! I'll let you guys live today, but only if you stop casting explosions on my castle, Got it?"

"No way! A Crimson demon has to cast explosion magic everyday or they die!" Megumin said

"Don't Bullshit me! I've never heard of that before!" The Dullahan shouted, "If you don't plan on giving up on my castle that easily, then I have other methods of dealing with people that like to bother me…"

The dullahan started to have a dark glow on him, and was emitting a purple and red Aura

Megumin stood her ground and said in an arrogant manner, "Bother you? Ha! This entire time you were in your castle, most of the adventurers can't do their work properly since all the quests are high level! But I have a solution to that, Behold! The archpriest that's an expert at dealing with undead, I leave this to you, grandmaster Aqua!" Megumin said, as she started to walk back, present Aqua, and hide behind Darkness.

As soon as Aqua was presented as the Dullahans next opponent, I started to walked backwards slowly…

Nope, fuck that. Fuck ALL of that! Hell NO!

Aqua then started to give a speech towards the Dullahan that made her get a bigger head that had already been too big.

"Hmph, looks like it's my time to shine. Not as the Archpriest Aqua, but as the Beautiful and godly talented, Goddess Aqua of the Axis Cult! You've made a horrible choice to come here during the day while I'm in this town, do you not have a brain you undead creature! Come! We'll have a battle that will be told for generations on how the Goddess Aqua took down an undead who was high and mighty, only to lose miserably! Demon King Boss or not, Get ready to face humiliation!" Aqua then started to chant a spell to hit the dullahan with, and I was still backing away slowly….

I looked back and saw the faces of all the adventurers staring at Aqua, it was tense. I felt bad for their soon be disappointed faces, it's not good to have faith in the one person that comes to the tavern every morning begging for spare change to spend on booze.

"You're not a normal priest but an archpriest right? Doesn't matter, you're still not high enough of a level to even hurt me, stop trying so hard. My matter isn't with you, but the idiotic Crimson Demon that keeps blowing up my castle! I'll show you why not to mess with a Dullahan…"

The Dullahan then opened its palm and aim it at Megumin, and all of the purple and red aura that was covering him disappeared and emitted from his hand, and shouted:

"One Week! You shall perish in one week!" Hey, wasn't this line in a movie or something? The dark aura that was in the hands of the Dullahan was shooting out towards Megumin and was closing in fast!

Without even thinking of what would've happened to her, Darkness grabbed the cape of Megumin and pulled her back and took the dark aura from the Dullahan to save Megumin.

"Darkness!" Megumin shouted, and Darkness' body started to faintly glow the same aura like the Dullahan had, before having it fade out.

I stopped backing up and and started to sprint to where the group was, and was standing beside Darkness asking "Hey! Are you alright? Are you in pain?" wait, am I really showing concern for a teammate of mine? For Once?

Darkness then said in a disappointed tone, "No, I'm not in pain…", hey give back my concern if you're gonna act like that. Let it used on someone who actually needs it…

Kazuma then said in a sad tone, "One week…" Oh right, the Dullahan did say that did he...

The Dullahan then explained, "The curse won't hurt her for now, but if you want to remove it, you're going to have to face me in my castle and defeat me yourselfs heros! You've been bombing it for the past week, you know where to head...By the way, each day you wait, the pain is going to increase tenfold! Crimson Demon idiot! You're going to regret your actions that you took, and your punishment is now pushed onto your companion! I respect the bond of commadorie you share, but if you fail to defeat me, that's the last thing she's going to feel for you! You should've listened to me from the start, or even better, stopped bombing my castle!"

Megumin was frozen in place when she heard what the Dullahan said, frozen from fear, shock, and utter shame that her companion was going to die from her stupid obsession. Darkness on the other hand…

"This….is the best thing to ever happen!" Darkness said as she was starting to fantasize, why is she the way she is, "What your saying is that for the curse to be removed, I have to go to your castle and let you and your minions have your way with me for the next week until the pain breaks me and release me on the final day when the pain is no longer bearable right? RIGHT!?"

Someone, anyone please throw her in jail or some kind of asylum, society would be better off without her…

Darkness started to squeal highly and say "Ahhhhh! What should I do guys!? The Dullahan is looking at me with his lusty eyes, his gaze feels so cold and sharp! It feels like he really wants me to go back to his dungeon to do anything he wants with me just to release the curse, a Crusader always protects their friends and those in need! I don't have any choice! That's right, I'm doing this for the people, right!"

The Dullahan looks like he had no idea what he got dragged into, even though he's the one who placed a 1 week death curse on my party member, I started to feel bad for him. Darkness then started to walk over to the Dullahan happily and panting heavily, Run Dullahan Man, RUN!

"Don't think that I'll break easily just because I'm a woman! Even if you do unreasonable and perverted actions towards my body, don't think that you'll be able to take my heart! W-W-what should I do guys! This is too exciting! I'm not going because I want to, but for the people and my trusted comrade! I'll be back soon, don't wait for me!"

Why is she like this...someone grab a stone and throw it at her, maybe the impact will revert her to be someone normal, cause if not I'm going to be the one who has to!

"Run! She's not normal whatsoever Dullahan, protect your normality!" I shouted, Darkness then stopped and looked towards me, and said "Hey, what's that supposed to mean!?" Exactly what it means…

Kazuma was then able to grab Darkness by restricting both her arms, and holding her back "Kazuma what are you doing! Let me Go! An opportunity like this is too good to pass up!"

The Dullahan then turned around and cleared his throat, "A-Anyways, as long as the curse is still placed on her, she will start to feel extreme pain, and as long as I still live she will die in one week. I hope you learned your lesson girl, stop casting explosion magic on my Castle and make it to my room on the top floor of the castle filled with an immeasurable amount of my undead minions. Do you think you can do that? HMMMM?" The Dullahan then rode his horse in the opposite direction of us while laughing evilly, what kind of shitstorm have they drug us into…

Megumin was trembling from the words of the Dullahan, Kazuma had a face of fear and while talking to himself for a bit, Darkness was disappointed at the "Missed Opportunity", Aqua was standing there as if nothing happened, and I was there, just taking it all in.

Megumin then started to walk towards the direction that the Dullahan left while still trembling, Kazuma grabbed her shoulder and asked, "Hey where do you think you're going? Going to the castle alone is basically suicide you know?"

Megumin responded in a low voice "This is all my fault, Darkness is going to die in a week if we don't do anything. It's my mess to begin with, all I have to do is place an explosion on the Dullahan and have him release Darkness from his spell."

Kazuma sighed and said "Well if you're going then I'm going too. With your abilities, you won't be able to make it a quarter of the way so I'll guide you to the top floor. Also I'm partially responsible since I didn't know that the castle belong to Demon King army Boss."

Megumin's trembling lightened a bit, but was still present..

"I'll go too, I've got the most close quarter combat abilities and skills, and Kazuma's gear won't last long there so I'll join in too" I said, I may not have much faith in them, but I'll be damned if I let them die for nothing.

Kazuma then started to come up with a plan that could work in hindsight, but was risky due to the high level of security and low level of his ability.

"Alright", he said "this is how we'll enter: I've got a 'Hide' skill to try and sneak into the castle, and using my 'Detect enemy' skill we should be able to navigate easily as long as the don't get spotted, if that doesn't work, we could always just use Explosion to slowly chip away at the undead guarding the castle and bust through with Tsukiyo's strength, and be protected from any incoming hits using Darkness' defense."

"Don't worry Darkness, we'll sort this mess out so you can live-" Kazuma was then cut off by Aqua who said "Sacred Break Spell"

Oh, ok.

The dark aura that was surrounding Darkness was now cleansed and purified from Aqua's spell, and was now sad from getting the "missed opportunity" now completely wiped out. Aqua said in a confident tone, that for once didn't sound arrogant "Small spells like that are no match for a goddess like me. It was borderline childsplay, if you ask me! I can be a proper archpriest too sometimes…"

….well, I guess the tense mood was now replaced with a dull one. I should probably head back to work…

 _One week later_

 _The Calm before the (Shit)Storm_

One week has passed since the Dullahan came by to curse the person who was blowing up his castle, and since Darkness got the curse removed from her, I was still working in the tavern since high level quests were still popping up and were the only option.

At this point, Aqua was starting to complain about not wanting to work and do an actual quest, from the shit that they went through in their first quest, I was honestly surprised that she was insisting on doing a high level quest.

I was still a waiter in the eating area and was serving the group the food they ordered, while slightly confused and suspicious on why someone like her was wanting to go on a quest, could be the fact that she spends all her money here and begs for it sometimes, or the fact that she doesn't like regular "peasant" work, either way it wasn't normal.

I answered Aqua saying, "Even if we got a high level job that was possible for us, we still don't have enough firepower to take on high level monster, Megumin can only shoot once, Kazuma has bad gear, and I can't take on every monster on my own, Believe me, I tried and nearly died from all of the attempts." I then started to walk to another table to take their order, Aqua was still talking as if she ignored me, well that's what probably happened anyways…

I then headed near the kitchen to relay the orders before Linda stopped me, "Something wrong?" I asked, Linda replied with "You should probably go with your party to do some quests, you've been cooped up here helping us for 2 weeks as an adventurer, and I don't know how to thank you enough for the help, but I think it's time for you to help out other people in need of your talent. What do you say?"

Translation: Thanks for helping us in the Tavern, but you should look out for your party before they get themselves killed ok?

I smiled a bit, and replied "Alright, I get the message. No need for anything else?" Linda just smiled, "Always so humble to help, I feel like it's a waste to let you go~" she said in a sort of flirtatious way, this had no effect on me since there was a couple of times where the older women in my last job would always flirt with me because of my manly JoJo muscles.

"Nice try, you're not the first woman to try and flirt with me because of my job you know?" I said in joking voice, Linda chuckled a bit, "Awww too bad I guess, you can end your shift here. Looks like your party has found a quest to take, better go before you get left behind!" she said as the group started to head towards the door.

"Yeah ok, fine. I'll be right back" I then relayed the order to the chef and told him I'd be leaving, he gave me a tough time for leaving before the shift ended, but still told me to not die from something stupid.

I would soon enter the Men's locker room, change out of my work clothes, put on my adventurers clothes and sword, and soon left the Tavern to catch up with my party that was for some odd reason buying a cage big enough to hold a bear in.

You know what, I'm not even gonna ask…

(Just a small note, I wanted to say thank you for the 20 people who actually like this crappy story (along with other possible ghost readers that read this but not bookmark/like/follow it. I know you're there…) that was basically made from hype and little to no creative sense from it (In before everyone unbookmarks likes this) but in all seriousness thank you for reading this and continuing to read it even though 95% a copy of the light novel with some tweaks. Also I've said it once and I'll say it again, please leave a review on how you feel about the story so far, I'm curious on you opinions and hope to get slightly better at story writing, including that one review that called my story "nothing different in terms of plot and story" I mean, that's sort of the point since my very first comment on this story was that Tsukiyo was not really the MC since this story will share with Kazuma, the true "MC".

So tl;dr, thanks for reading my shitty story, I'll still update until i'm bored or too busy, and I'm going to "borrow" 1-2 more things from DMC4, yeah I lied I know, and the story will still follow Kazuma but with Tsukiyo.

P.s I'm still working on ya boi's face, drawing electronically instead of on paper is hard…)


	10. Cages, Trouble, and a Duel

You know, I was sort of surprised when I heard what the quest was about; purifying a lake that would be the home of some alligators, but after hearing their logic and way of "easily" handling the situation, which would be sticking aqua in a cage, setting her beside the lake, and letting her be some kind of tea-bag purifier thing, I was not going to question it.

I decided to accept things the way they are and not question anything else, The less I questioned, the more I'd be spared of disappointment, but then again, there's always bound to be disappointment no matter how low my standards are, someone please help…

As of right now, we were walking down to a lake that was polluted, and while we were walking I asked Aqua some questions to fully make sure that this was something that was going to work, I really didn't feel like fighting and getting another near death experience like the last 2 times.

"Just to get this straight, just by touching the water you can purify it along with using purification magic, and that can work?" I asked, still not convinced that she can actually pull this off.

"Of course I can, you cripple! Just who do you take me for? I've got the highest stats of everyone here, along with that I am an archpriest. Using Holy Magic and those of the sorts are my specialty." Aqua boasted, She really needs to stop calling me cripple before she gets backhanded.

Kazuma then chimed in saying, "Like those stupid party tricks that you do, are those part of your specialty too?" He had a smirk on his face when he said that, Aqua on the other hand shrugged it off.

Whenever Aqua had a chance to show off her party tricks to some of the adventurers in the Tavern, she'd always get some kind of reaction, and at rare times she'd get tips. I would know this, because when she'd do a trick in the Tavern it'd somewhat make my job that I had both easier and harder.

"So how long will this take? I don't think it'll take that long depending on the lake size, and effectiveness of your purification, like 3-4 hours?" I asked, since I didn't know how big the lake was I couldn't really make a good guess.

"Nope, about half a day" Aqua said in a deadpan tone, I see this wasn't the first time asked.

"Alright, that's longer than expected, but how much did it cost to buy this cage? You sure you can make back some money after spending, what 300,000 eris for this?" I asked, this was probably the biggest thing they bought yet, and although it was with their money, I really hoped that they (Kazuma Aqua) wouldn't beg me to help pay for the damages if shit hits the fan.

Kazuma then said, "The cage was about 200,000 and the reward for this quest is 300,000. It's a 100,000 eris return. It's not much, but it's better than doing any of the other quest that we found on the board."

This was a bad deal, but sometimes we have to take bad deals in life just to move forward, so I couldn't really complain.

We finally reached the lake that had an ash grey color with pollution and couldn't see 1 ft into the water, it was really dirty. The size of the lake looked like a bit bigger than your average lake (320 miles x 230 miles), and had a boat dock on one side of the lake that would usually be filled with wooden boats, but the boats that were there were beached, with 2-3 of those boats being destroyed beyond repair. Right next to the dock was a small fishing bridge that lead to away from the land towards an to the water.

I took a small walk towards the lake and put my hand in the water to see how polluted it was, waved it in the water from left to right only to see a lot of dirt, grime, and bacteria swirling across where my hand was. It was disgusting, so I took hand out and was surprised to see that some of the dirt and grime had got on my hand and smelled horrible, I then thought up of a "Fun" idea…

I started to walk towards Kazuma who was getting the cage ready for Aqua, and said "Hey Kazuma check this out!" Before he could turn around, I lunged my hand towards his face, and when he did, my hand smeared some of the dirt and grime that was in the lake and left a handprint that stayed on the left side of his face, from his left cheek to his eyebrow.

"What the Fuck!?" Kazuma realised what I just did and started to freak out a bit from disgust and started rub his face on the grass to get rid of the grime on his face "AHHH! dammit! What the fuck is this!? Oh god, this smells toxic!". All four of us were laughing from this, with me laughing the hardest, kneeling while slamming my left hand in the ground from the pure laughter that was currently paining my stomach and coughing from the lack of air that was in my lungs. Kazuma then tackled me for being the dick I was and was shaking me heavily, "You bastard, you know how bad that smelled!? I'm gonna get revenge, you hear me!" Kazuma said in anger, I didn't care since I was in pain anyways from my stomach, but It was worth it…

"Oh shi-hi-hit! That was so worth it, haha, oh my gut hurts so bad! You still didn't repay me back for the money you stole, so consider this revenge, you slimy fuck!" Kazuma then get up, and said lowly, "I'll get you back someday…" and gave an evil smile to me, I smiled back and said "Try it if you can" and got up after Kazuma lent me a hand.

After that was over, and after I wiped my hand on the grass to get rid of some of the grime on my hand that was still there, Kazuma then finished getting the cage ready and mentioned for Aqua to get in, Aqua looked a bit scared after getting in and asked, "Hey...will this really keep me safe from the alligators? There's a lot of space between the bars, It doesn't feel safe whatsoever." Kazuma then said, "Well it doesn't matter if it's safe enough or not, we already paid for it. I don't feel like going back and paying for a more expensive one since we don't have the money to get a better one, so you'll have to just make do with what we got." Although this didn't reassure Aqua, she still got in regardless since she was the only one with purification magic.

After 20 minutes of me, Kazuma, and Darkness pushing the cage to the edge of the lake, we then tied the chain of the cage to a large boulder that was nearby, and waited by it so Aqua could do her job.

\--2 hours later--

It's been about about 2 hours maybe? I'm not sure, they don't have clocks here, and I don't think wrist watches are a thing yet, but it's been some time since Aqua got in the cage and started purifying the water, but not much has been different. The lake was still grimey, it was still the ash grey color it had before, and not much was happening.

I was sitting on the grass since I was tired of standing, and almost fell asleep at one point, but was rudely awakened by Aqua who wanted me awake just in case of anything, so I couldn't really take a small nap.

Kazuma who was laying on the grass, sat up and shouted towards Aqua, "HEY! Anything Different?" Aqua who was still sitting in the water responded "No!" Was this really gonna take half a day?

Another 20 minutes passed, and the water started to ripple a bit around the cage that Aqua was in, I squinted my eyes to see what would cause it, and what popped up from the water was a purple alligator, or more specifically, a Brutal Alligator.

"Oh…" I said, and as I said that, the group that was lounging around took a look where I was staring at and started to see the purple alligators come closer to Aqua. Aqua started to panic.

"U-Um, Guys! Some help please? They're getting really close to me, and I don't like that!" Aqua said in a panicked voice, she was in the shit right now, and I'm not sure whether to help or just see if they can rip through the cage. It was a hard choice…

The Alligators that were near the cage then started to attack Aqua, and she freaked the the fuck out. hard.

You remember seeing that one video online where it showed a small dog being bothered by a squeaky glove, then attacking it while the glove shrieked? Yeah, I was reminded of that in this situation; Aqua was the squeaky glove screaming and bothering the alligators, probably because of the purification, and the Alligators were the dog attacking the glove at full force (1.)

Aqua then started to chant purification magic and while screaming at full force "PURIFICATION! PURIFICATION! PURIFICATION! AHH! SOMETHING WENT CRACK! PLEASE HELP! GUYS! AHHHH! PURIFICATION!"

Looking to the left and right I saw that none of them were willing to help her, wow, was she really not liked by them? Not surprised.

Kazuma was thinking hard on what to do, it looked like, Megumin was the same, but she probably didn't have a choice because of her one and only spell she has, and Darkness was looking at Aqua's pain and suffering happily while probably fantasizing about being in there. She then looked over to me, where I had a face that said 'Just stop', and went back to normal for a bit.

No one was going to help her in the time of need, and neither was I, so I asked "Hey, you wanna back out? You can probably escape if you try?" Aqua despite being in the situation she was in, said "No! I need the money, I can't back out now! Purification!"

Ok well, I tried. Nap time!

A Few Hours Later~

I would be soon be woken up by Megumin who was right next to me, as I started to open my eyes I saw that It was now the afternoon and that Kazuma and Darkness were next to the cage that Aqua was in kneeled down next to her.

It seemed that what she experienced was so traumatizing she'd want to stay in the beaten, battered, broken, and absolutely destroyed cage that she was in until we reached a "Safe Place."

While talking to one another away from Aqua, we decided to let her keep the full bounty. I had enough money to last a month or two, so I had no problems.

Damn, I'm starting to feel bad now...

As we made our way back to the town, Aqua started to sing a sad song in a low voice. It started to give off an impression that she was captured and about to be either sold or dissected for "science."

"We're already at the town, stop singing and get out of the cage. I don't want to get a bad impression from the people because of you. Megumin almost destroyed my impression the first time, I don't need you doing it the second time." Kazuma said, I think the town already has a bad impression of you already if not, then that'll soon change.

"I don't want to. The outside world is scary, just let me stay in my safe place, this cage. Everything inside here can't hurt me." That's some next level trauma right there.

It hurt to have the townspeople gaze at us like we forced her to stay in the cage, I was hoping for something to come along and distract them from us.

"G-Goddess! Is that really you!? What are you doing here!? And why are you in that cage!?" said some random dude, thank god a distraction!

I turned around to see a random dude in full armour with a big sword in his back who started yelling for some reason, and was surprised to see that he was talking to Aqua who was in the cage. Hold up, something's wrong with this situation…

As I was getting suspicious and thinking about the situation. The random dude jumped to the cage that Aqua was in and literally pulled two of the bars apart leaving a space big enough for anyone to get out of. Damn, rando boi became a beefy boi.

"Hey, want do you think you're doing!? That cage was expensive! You better pay up if your gonna damage shit like that!" Kazuma said angrily. Darkness, for once, acted like a normal person and said, "Hey, you shouldn't be so familiar with someone you just met, let alone touch her and try to take her away."

Darkness was actually acting like a good person and not a perverted bitch, I'm proud in a way, but then again, she's just gonna turn back to whatever she is when this is over with. Oh hey Disappointment! Welcome back to my brain, make yourself at home! Get out of here standards, you too overrated to stay!

Darkness was then shielding Aqua from the beefy boi, and preventing him from getting to her. Me and Kazuma went to Aqua to try to snap her out of her traumatic trance.

"Hey, this guy called you Goddess, someone you know? If so, you might wanna deal with him, don't want to make a scene." Kazuma whispered to Aqua, I whispered to Kazuma "We already made a scene the moment we got back to town, it's all about crowd control now! Aqua wake up!" I said as I shook her a bit to try and stop her trance.

She then said "Goddess? Oh right! I am a goddess!" That seemed to bring her back to reality, was she really traumatized or was it good acting? I'll be both pissed and impressed if it was acting.

Aqua would soon stand up from the position she was in for half the day and jump out via the gap the beefy boi made from his hands. As she got to see him face to she asked in a confused manner "Who are you again?" Damn sick burn, kappa. Now isn't the time to fuck around Aqua!

"Hey, are you serious? My name is Mitsurugi Kyouya! I got the cursed sword Gram from you! Don't you remember me?" The beefy boi named Mitsurugi asked Aqua who was now tilting her head, squinting at him, and putting her hand on chin thinking hard about who he was (2.)

Hold on have I seen this type of face before?

Kazuma then whispered towards me "Hey, his name sounds Japanese. He might also be a re-incarnated, his sword might be the item he got." Shit, if things go south, I might not be able to beat him.

There seemed to be two girls with him too, one with a spear and another with a dagger. I'd pay attention to them but they seem like side characters, so they don't matter.

Aqua finally recognized him and said, "Oh yeah, you died from a car crash on a bridge after the car fell into the water, right? I remember someone like you, you were crying for 2 hours straight!" damn man, it sucks to suck.

Mitsurugi breathed a sigh of relief, why cause a random girl remembered him? Come on, you can do better than that I hope. "Well as long as you remember, but it's been a while Goddess. Ever since the day I came here, I've been working hard to become the hero of this land! As of right now, I'm a level 37 Sword Master, hoping to kill the demon boss someday, by the way, why are you here? and in that cage too?" Boy, are you in for a story…

Kazuma then explained what happened to her and why she was in the cage, you can guess what his response was…

"Are you serious!? That's the most irresponsible thing I've heard! You bring her to this dangerous world, and have the nerve to place her in a cage to be attacked just for a quest?!" Mitsurugi shouted at Kazuma, while grabbing his shirt forcefully. I would've done something but it seems that Aqua became useful and diffused the situation before it got worse, "Hey it's alright! I'm actually living happily here! Doing some quests is fun, and on today's quest everyone decided to let me have all the bounty money, 300,000 to myself!" Aqua exclaimed happily,

Mitsurugi looked at her with pity, and asked "After being scammed for a measly 300,000, how are you on his side? Wait, where are you staying for the night?" Aqua replied casually, "In the stables." This seemed to have lit a fuse in him since he used a lot more force to grab Kazuma's collar, I stepped in and grabbed his shoulder and glared at him "Hey man, you better let go before something bad happens. It'd be a shame if you ended up like me but worse." I threatened him as my voice got cold.

I wasn't normally this hostile, but because I saw someone who looked strong enough to go solo pick on the weakest in the party, it set off something fierce. Darkness seemed to have backed me up on this since she was also beside Kazuma with the same glare on her face.

It looks like he hasn't been threatened much since people are probably intimidated by his armour, but we seemed to have made him back off a bit. Mitsurugi was now labled Motherfucker from now on.

Megumin was now starting to chant her spell, I was still pissed, so in the same voice I threatened Motherfucker with, I told Megumin "You better not cast that spell, if you don't want to be next…" She seemed to have stopped chanting for the moment, I'd have to apologise later for my tone, but this dude is just a grade A asshole.

"You also have a Crusader, Swordsman, and an Archwizard? You luck seems a little too great for your ability. Do you feel any shame for letting them sleep in the stables? You're the weakest in the party right?" Motherfucker said as he stared at us intensely, Boy this guy gets cocky very easily does he?

I asked Aqua who was the only person to "know" him, "Hey, why's he acting so cocky? What's his deal?" She replied back, "He was granted a powerful sword when getting here. Probably took on some high level quests, and started to have his ego go his head. Probably had no trouble with money because of his sword too, but that's the norm for Re-incarnated like him."

Ok, although that made some sense, how does she know about being reincarnated and coming to this world? Was her BS talk about being a goddess was actually true? I told her that I'd ask more questions later on, but right now we had to take care of this situation.

Kazuma seemed to have heard the conversation between me and Aqua, and was starting to groan lowly after hearing that. Was he _T R I G G E R E D_ ? From what?

Motherfucker then started to speak to us, but mainly towards the girls of the party in an arrogant manner and said "It must be hard having to deal with a person like that," pfft, says you, you egocentric prick, "Please join me from now on and forget about him. You won't sleep in the stables, I can get you premium made armour, and we can take down the Demon King easily with this set-up. I am a Sword Master, so there's no need for the handicapped in the cloak, or the weakest in the party, but a Crusader and Archwizard to join along with the goddess Aqua, it's too perfect to be beaten!" He claimed proudly, man I'm just about to kick his ass, Demon Arm or not.

After hearing the idiots deal, the 3 girls decided to talk to themselves about the deal, probably.

Me and Kazuma waited for about 5 minutes of them talking in secret, and after all that, Aqua tugged our sleeves a bit, and whispered, "Yeah, let's just go back to the guild. This guys is too much, even for us. I might've gave him the sword, but his personality sucks, let's leave while we still can." Agreed, getting the fuck out of dodge is always a good idea.

I turned to Motherfucker and spoke, "Yeah, they discussed it and said Fuck no. Welp, that's the consensus, see ya!" I then turned back to head to the guild along with the rest of the party, only to have this guy get in our way.

Does he wanna fight? Cause if so, Fuck it, I'm down.

"Dude, out of the way." I said in a annoyed tone, I'm really gonna have to beat his ass to leave us alone…

"I'm sorry for the rudeness, but I can't just leave things where they are," YES YOU CAN, "Goddess may have given me this sword, but to see her in such a degraded state in a degraded team, I can't let this go!" LIKE I SAID, YES YOU FUCKING CAN "You can't kill the Demon King, that's my job, it better for her to go with me." _*Puts hands together and breathes in heavily*_ , **BOI** "You said you chose her as your item right? To bring with you to this world? If that's the case, then how about making a bet? If you chose Aqua as your item, then if I win the bet, she has to come with me; If you win, I can promise you one thing, it can be anything." Motherfucker said, Kazuma looked at he was ready to bust out swinging at him, so before he could do anything that might make him lose, I grabbed his shoulder to calm him down and stepped forward.

I then spoke in the same manner Motherfucker spoke in, "You know, you're pretty dishonorable to suggest that. I'm not sure if you can even call yourself a man anymore, coward!" Motherfucker seemed to be surprised, and soon asked "Why, why am I a dishonorable man?"

Looks like I'm going to have to use my Toxic personality...

I sighed loudly enough for him to hear me, the Toxicity was now flowing through. I soon said, "Well isn't obvious you jackass? You, a level 37 Sword Master, is challenging Kazuma, a level 2 thief! What kind of match up is that? Are you too weak willed to fight him properly because of your hard-on for Aqua? If so, then man are you pathetic! I'd believe that Kazuma would have more decency than you, and he stole some panties from a girl before! So tell me, what does that make you? A fraud?" I was giving him a smile of no shit's being given, and because we were out in the open, I could use the public to have my back if he really does take Aqua away from him. I seemed to have been getting stares from Darkness and Megumin who never saw this side of me before, doesn't matter, I'm not done reeling this bastard in.

He looks to be having second thoughts, and I soon baited him in "If you actually want to be considered partly a man, and not a pathetic fraud who picks on the weak, then Face me and Kazuma! I mean, you really do want your precious Aqua away from people like us, right?" Now, we wait for him to take it.

He seemed to ponder the thought for a while, and seemed to have taken the bait for the most part. "Alright, I'll accept this proposal, but You'll have to face me Swordsman! The other one will support you from behind, do we have a deal?" You poor naive bastard…

I said "Well, looks like you're part of a man, but we'll see after we fight." I then walked back to Kazuma to tell him my plan…

After 2-3 minutes of explaining, He seemed to understand and had a shitstain grin on his face. He can't hide his emotions well can he? Well, the Motherfucker (MoFo) would only focus on me for the most part, so Kazuma will have to stay put until the time comes.

I then stood about 10ft away from MoFo, and exceeded my sword to Level 2, since he doesn't know about my Exceed feature, I should be able to catch him by surprise and knock him down until for Kazuma to deal the finishing blow.

We then readied ourselves, MoFo readied his sword by holding it out in front of him, I readied my sword by resting the non-sharp side of it on my left shoulder, and Kazuma readied himself my getting in a position behind me to use his ability.

\--

(Reference Vid: https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DRnMl3OHraX4ved=0ahUKEwiTg4Lny_XbAhWJL3wKHaGUCE8QwqsBCCcwAAusg=AOvVaw12zzPzUdriZ-PT3OZGz9u6)

\--

Then in a split second, I rushed towards MoFo and swung my sword Horizontally with the Exceed on my sword producing a lot of flames to distract MoFo (Streak Ex. 1:50), this surprised him since he seemed to step back abit to put his guard up, he then lunged his sword towards me, but I barely manage to dodge it and miss it by an inch, I guess the title Sword Master isn't for show!

Seeing as I got an opportunity to counter I lunged back and rushed forwards slashing horizontally and diagonally from bottom right to top left with my exceed still in use (Ex. Shuffle 2:56), he managed to block the horizontal slash but I managed to break his guard from the diagonal slash and go in for the kill, metaphorically sadly, not literally.

To back him into a corner to have Kazuma finish him off, I slashed a vertically downwards, to loosen his grip on his sword, and started hacking on his sword downwards repeatedly and heavily (Red Queen Combo B 0:10) and while he was still being bombarded from above, I dug my sword in the ground, blade facing out and slashed outwards to loosen his footing, I shouted "NOW!" Kazuma was now ready to use his ability, so I leaped to the side to not get in the crossfire and had Kazuma use his 'Steal' Ability.

A bright light flashed in his hands, and after the light vanished, Kazuma held the cursed weapon Gram in his hands, just like I planned. MoFo, being surprised in this development, tried to get his weapon back by running towards Kazuma, he caught me off guard when he did that so I couldn't catch him, but Kazuma dealt the final blow by almost dropping the blade from its weight. Notice that I said 'almost', because MoFo was running to get his sword, his head broke the fall that the sword was going to have knocking him out cold. We won.

The two girls who followed MoFo seemed to be worried that he got knocked out. Well, sucks to be them. They soon started to shout and walk towards us, the spear girl said "Hey You dirty scumbag! You berated him on not fighting fairly yet you cheated him in that fight!" The thief girl behind her was shouting repeatedly "Scumbag! Scumbag! Scumbag!"

I turned towards the two girls and said, "This Guy started the beef, if he can't handle the problems that followed after it, then he's not suited to be an adventurer whatsoever, his attitude and actions are enough proof."

Kazuma then turned towards the girls and said, "A bets a bet. I won the bet, so I'll be taking this sword." The thief girl then spoke loudly, "Y-you can't! Only Kyouya is able to use the cursed sword, if you try then it'll only be a normal sword! The blessing only works for him, and him only!" Damn, thats sucks, got a free high tier weapon that can't be used.

Kazuma then turned to Aqua and said "Seriously?" Aqua replied, "Yeah, that weapon is exclusive to him only. It was given to him by me, so it only makes sense to only have him use it. It's still a good sword, but just a normal one at the most." Well, when in doubt, the black market could always use an exclusive…

"Oh well, tell the guy when he wakes up that it was nice doing business with him, wish him the best of luck. No complaints or take backs, all sales are final!" Kazuma said as he turned his back to go to the guild.

We started to leave the unconscious dude behind along with his companions as we headed to the guild and black market, but now the companions want to face us too…

"Hold it right there!" Said the thief girl, "We're getting that sword back! We don't acknowledge this win, you cheat!" Said the spear girl angrily.

Then without even thinking, I exceeded my sword to level 1 and horizontally slashed my sword close towards them, and it was close, like dangerously close! The artificial flames that was made from the Red Queen looks like it almost hit them, they shrieked loudly and fell to the ground trembling just as hard as Megumin did when Darkness got cursed. I then dug my sword into the ground close to them and revved my sword twice, and told them in a cold voice "Piss. Off."

I think I went a bit too far since this was an unnecessary move to do, but for some reason, it felt right to do that, even if it was out of anger. I then dug my sword out of the ground, placed it on my back and left with my party who was looking at me weirdly. We soon went to the guild with the cage that was still sort of broken where Aqua would be able to cash in the bounty all for herself as we promised, but Kazuma went another direction with the sword that we 'won' from the MoFo.

Reference:

1 - https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DxFFaYARr7t8ved=0ahUKEwir7e3qmaXcAhWHHHwKHSVBBIAQ3ywIJTAAusg=AOvVaw0fpTEetFV7xdZkRTY1YoIE ('Dog attacks Mickey Mouse hand', if the link isn't working in YT)

2 - https//search?q=thinkingemojimemeclient=tablet-android-lenovoprmd=isnvsource=lnmstbm=ischsa=Xved=0ahUKEwiNtfiPqaXcAhWUFzQIHVJkCiEQ_AUIESgBbiw=1098bih=686#imgrc=NCPmE_oyVZ18nM (fookin memes m89)


	11. Shitstorms and Exposure

After our run in with the arrogant prick that was in our way along with his two companions, Aqua went to Linda to turn in her bounty, but was met with a small problem when she tried to return the damaged cage back to the owner.

"I keep telling you! It wasn't me, it was that Misurugi person! It was damaged because of him!" Aqua cried to the cage owner as she tried to convince him that the cage that got damaged wasn't her fault, Compared to Kazuma it looks like her luck seriously sucks.

Not being able to convince the owner, she seems to have suck it up for the moment and take the rewards that she earned, and headed towards where we were sitting. I on the other hand was on another booth next to them laying down with my hand behind my head, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Because the cage was made with special materials, they took 200,000 away from me to compensate for the damages. UGH, when I see that Mitsurugi person again, I'm gonna God Blow him!" Aqua said in anger, Kazuma being back from wherever he went, seemed to be ignoring Aqua's threats towards the arrogant armoured guy, and asked, "Hey, not sure if this is a bad time Tsukiyo, but what happened earlier? I get that, that Mitsurugi guy might've gotten under our skin, but what you did to the 2 girls after was a bit much you know?" he asked out of concern, I had to answer him honestly, "Sorry about that, I was a bit triggered at that time because of his situation and the way he was treating you, I guess I sort of lost my cool and showed a side I don't like showing very often…"

The Toxic side that I didn't show very often was a side that sort of got created from me repressing some negative emotions and memories. I only use it to antagonize people, which was usually people who try to fight me, but whenever I do so, I end up taking that extra step to make it go from Toxic to being Downright wrong. Last time I showed it, I nearly got jumped from 3 guys who were bullying me for being 'friendless', and almost ended with me holding a tire pipe to defend myself with. If it was just verbal assault instead of incredible violence, I'd be using it a lot more. I'd probably have my hair turn black/grey and make my eyes go rotten, like dead fish eyes rotten.

"I'll try not to let it happen again, sorry you guys had to see that." I said in an apologizing tone, "Also, sorry Megumin for the threat earlier, you didn't deserve that, even if you sort of did." Megumin looked at me and smiled a bit, "It's okay, I think Kazuma would've stopped me if you didn't." I'm pretty sure everyone would've, but I'll just leave it at that.

"There you are! Satou Kazuma! Nakano Tsukiyo! I had a hard time finding you, but I managed to do so!" Great, Mofo is back, and how does he know our names?

"Nope, not dealing with this. I'm taking a nap, call me when this situation isn't annoying to handle…" I said as I forced myself to sleep, Kazuma seemed to try to call out to me, but once I was asleep, there was no waking me up unless it was important or a loud noise went off.

I was alone in my thoughts again….

...for the moment anyways...

 _Well, well, well. That's was interesting..._

You again huh? I'm guessing that 'you', are the mental manifestation of my Demon Arm, so by logic...You're a fake Vergil from DMC are you?

 _Correct, Tsukiyo. You should show more of that power from earlier, it...peaked my interests..._

Really now? Why should I?

 _If you want the power to protect the ones close to you, you don't have a choice. Besides, I'm part of you, and you are part of me, we need survive this world, together._

Aren't you the caring type…

 _Besides the point, show me more of that power and I can help you get stronger. You should know what I mean by that, you're a smart kid…_

Who's to say you won't take control once I used the Trigger?

 _All things come to an end one way or another…_

I then woke up from my Encounter with Vergil, from an alarm that went off inside the guild.

"Emergency Broadcast! Emergency Broadcast! All adventurers please head to the main gate prepared all of your equipment for battle!" This time the announcer was a different voice, still one of the booth ladies that I talked to once, but it wasn't Linda.

Speaking of Linda, she was heading towards me right now with worry in her eyes. I got up from laying down and walked up to her, "What is it now?" She was panting a bit, not the way Darkness would, but panting as if she was running to find something or someone.

After a few seconds of catching her breath, she told me "It might be best...if you and your party go….they have to handle it…." Shit.

Me and the others rushed to the main gain where the other adventurers were, and what we saw gave us a feeling of unease and Deja Vu.

What we saw when we got to the main gate was the same enemy that we saw last week in the almost same circumstance. The Dullahan was in the same spot as he was last time, and still holding his spartan like armoured head in his left arms. The only difference was that there was an army of undead skeleton warriors behind him, it looked like it was a couple hundred.

All of the skeletons had decayed armour and either a rusted sword and shield, or a rotted bow and arrow quiver.

What the Dullahan said soon would confuse me, "You…..YOU INHUMANE BEASTS! Why didn't you come to the castle!?"

Kazuma walked in front of Megumin, to protect her from another curse from the Dullahan probably. He then said in a loud voice, "What do you mean by that? What have we done to be 'Inhuman Beasts'? We didn't go to your castle and stopped with the explosion magic! What's got you so mad bro?" I wanted to slap Kazuma for the last phrase he said.

The Dullahan then shouted towards us "Stopped? You think she stopped!? Stop screwing with me! She hasn't stopped since the last week! That Crimson Idiot didn't stop the explosions!"

Me and Kazuma looked at Megumin after the Dullahan told us that, and all she did was turn her head to avoid us. Kazuma then put his fists on both sides of Megumin's head, and squeezed it together like a vice, she should be grateful it wasn't me doing that.

"Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow! I'm sorry I just couldn't help it anymore, being able use explosion magic on big hard things like a castle was too satisfying, I couldn't be satisfied with empty plains anymore!" Megumin said while screaming in pain. Hold on a minute, something was off about this story…

"Who took you back after you casted your explosion, you can't move after casting it can you?" I said in a low tone, who was the idiot to let this happen…

Aqua then started to turn away and look suspicious, no fucking way…

I then grabbed Aqua by the arm as she tried to run from this situation, and I soon pinned her down on the ground to prevent her from escaping, I soon interrogated her, "Did you do it!? HUH!? Did you let this happen!?" Aqua was fidgeting trying to escape from being pinned down and started making excuses, "It's not my fault! It's the Dullahans fault that I couldn't work properly, I just wanted to vent my frustrations! The store owner lectured me everyday because of him!" I shouted at her stupidity "BULLSHIT! Outside forces don't distract you from work, and I doubt that it was the Dullahan alone that was at fault!"

The Dullahan then cleared it's throat signalling him trying to speak, "I'm not furious because of the explosions, what makes you inhumane beasts was the fact that none of you showed up to save your cursed comrade! I might've been executed from unjust actions, but I wasn't someone who would abandon their companion in their time of need! Out of all the knights here, the blonde one was the most honourable out of...all the...people...here…" The Dullahan slowly stopped his speech as soon as Darkness, unscathed and in perfect condition appeared from the crowd blushing a bit as the Dullahan said those things about her, talk about an awkward situation…

Darkness then said shyly, "U-um, hey there Mr. Dullahan…" This was the most awkward silence I've heard, and it was very painful to experience. Someone say something, the silence is deafening...

"Wait, hold on….What, What is this situation...didn't I already…" The Dullahan is probably severely confused right now, and I could not blame him one bit. Everything about this world is too much to handle, its okay if you hate all of us.

Aqua then started to laugh uncontrollably about the situation and said "What did you really think a puny spell like that couldn't be broken!? The moment you left, I easily broke it and went back to our normal lives! What? Were you really waiting for us in that hideous castle of yours? Really now, you're too pathetic to even consider that we'd go out of our way to head to your castle to get ourselves killed. This is too funny! Too Hilarious!" she was really starting to grind both the Dullahans and my gears from her speech.

The Dullahan then started to shake, I wasn't sure if it was from anger or embarrassment, I couldn't see his face, but either way Aqua was getting ahead of herself.

The Dullahan then said, "You shouldn't be laughing in this situation girl, If I get serious, I'll really kill all the adventurers and citizens of this town. You better stop while you still can." The Dullahan then had a tense air flow around it, it was pissed.

Aqua though, held her hands and in front of her and had white runes under the Dullahan and said "Don't get too ahead of yourself undead, you're just another soulless monster for me to purify! 'Turn Undead'!" Aqua chanted as a bright white light started to engulf the Dullahan, he looked confident enough that he wouldn't get hurt.

"You can try with all your might Archpriest, this armour was handed to me from the Demon Boss himself. We've fought priests before, and the protection the boss gave me and other undead bosses will protect us from the holy magic that -AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" The Dullahan then screamed as the holy magic was hurting him as it burned him where the black smoke spots was coming from on his armour.

When the bright light disappeared, the Dullahan took some effort to try and stand up from that attack, Aqua started to panic "It's not working! What should we do!?"...use it again?

"Wait for me...to finish at least" the Dullahan said as it was now on it legs again, "My name is Beldia, Dullahan and Demon Boss of the Demon King's army! With the armour given to me by the Demon King enchanted by him to wear off all holy magic, 'Turn Undead' should have no effect on me!" But….it did

"Our Diviner was raving about a strong light appearing in this town, and sent me to investigate. I was going to just destroy it in general, but I'll just let my men do the work, Go! My Brethren, let them know what hell taste like!" Beldia then shouted towards the skeletons,

"Hey! That just a cop out on being a coward! Don't try to escape while we fight your minions!" I shouted, Beldia shouted back "That's not it! In a battle you don't just fight the boss first, you have to fight the minions and work your way to the boss! This was done before in ancient times!"

Aqua shouted towards Belida "'Sacred Turn Undead'!", Beldia was once again in a bright light being scorched by the holy magic.

"AHHHHHHH, it burns! It Really Burns!" Beldia screamed as it was rolling on the ground as if it was in fire, there was no fire though so it was pretty funny…

"It's still not working! We need another plan!" I mean it's on the ground rolling in pain while screaming, that should be enough proof to do it again…

"Alright that's it, Brethren! Kill them! All of them!" Beldia finally made his call.

Since I was an adventurer that was stronger than the others, I held off about 4-5 at a time to stop them from getting close to the town, the skeletons were generally weak, but made up for it with in terms of number. The other adventurers that were still behind me were either starting to fight other skeletons that got past me or were panicking and started to shout, "Get the priests! Get the Priests over here!" "Go to the Eris church and grab the whole bowl of holy water!"

As I started to hold some of them off, Beldia started to laugh evilly, "Well young one, you seem to be doing a good job on facing off with multiple minions at once to protect the town, but you should remember that there are hundreds of them! Now! Hear the shrieks of agony and terror from your companions as they scream in...despair?"

I then started to hear only one scream from me, one familiar scream from a self proclaimed 'Goddess'. Some of the skeletons that I was fighting even left me like I was nothing and went after the screaming.

It seems that the useless party member became useful once again by luring out some of the undead skeletons that were attacking both me and the other adventurers behind. Since she was probably panicking ant not thinking straight, she decided to head straight towards the entire group of adventurers in front of the gate.

"Hey, Don't lure them over here you idiot!" Kazuma shouted as he was now getting chased from the same undead as Aqua, I was about to run over to help them, but Kazuma then shouted, "Tsukiyo! Get as far away from Belida as you can! I got a plan!" Whatever plan he had was the only one we had at the moment.

I was going to run, but Beldia seemed to have stopped me by blocking my path to the the other adventurers, "Now, now boy. Where do you think you're going? Your fight is with me now." His sword was now drawn and I was now in a fighting stance with my sword still drawn, just as we were about to fight it out, a big explosion could be heard behind Beldia that shook the ground beneath me and blew all the wind that was from the direction of the explosion towards the two of us.

As I took a look behind Beldia, it seemed that all of the undead skeletons were now vaporized from what seemed to be Megumin's spell, as I took my eyes off Beldia to see the crater behind him, Beldia said, while rushing towards me "Focus on me Boy! Don't wanna lose your head!" Beldia then slashed his giant sword towards me where I barely manage to dodge it by blocking it with my blade since it was too late to duck. When both of the blades got contacted, I was pushed back about 2-3 ft, while I manage to block his hit, it still hurt like a mother. Compared to Mofo, this guy was too advanced for me with just my sword alone.

Beldia then started tease me a bit, "Come on young one, Take me on with that small blade and lanky arm of yours! I want to experience a real Battle!" He then rushed at me again while throwing his head high in the air and swinging his great sword at me slashing from single directions that continued to hurt with each block I tried. Left, right, left, diagonal, horizontal, lunge. Each block made my arm hurt and slowly chipped away at my stamina from having to block.

Beldia then made a vertical slash that dug into the ground and into the air similar to one of my moves that I used (High Roller V1), and managed to make me let go of my sword and have it fly 6ft behind me. I couldn't use the Devil Bringer to snatch it since every adventurer in town was watching, so for the moment I had to dodge roll, bob, and weave away from his blade.

"Stop dancing young one! This is a battle, not a ball!" Beldia said as I continued to dodge his attacks, I was starting to run dangerously low on stamina where his last horizontal slash managed to cut me deep enough in my chest where it hurted and bled, but not enough to bleed a lot. I was now on the ground out of stamina, and Beldia was now standing on top of me as I was on the ground head first, he then put his boot on my head as he putting more weight in it slowly and made me eat the dirt.

I was at a point where I wanted to rip off my sling to deck him in the face, but the only person to have the guts to stand up to him saved me by presenting herself as the next target for Beldia's wrath. It was a blonde perverted girl who had no self control, and was serious 1% of the time. Darkness drew her sword to fight Beldia and get me out of the battlefield.

"So brave Crusader, you're my next opponent…" Beldia said as he continued to put more weight in his boot to my head. Darkness then spoke in a serious tone, "As a Crusader, and as a job of a Guardian, this is something I won't back off from. Let me protect you."

Beldia responded "Well fine then, maybe you'll provide me with a battle far more interesting than this disappointment…" Beldia then lifted his boot where my head was and kicked me in the stomach so hard, I skipped on the ground and landed near my sword.

Kazuma who had Megumin on her back, along with Aqua next to him ran up to where I was laying, "Tsukiyo! Are you okay!? Aqua heal him!" Kazuma said in concern, without arguing back, Aqua did as she was told and healed me without hesitation compared to the last two times.

As my wound on my chest was starting to heal, and some of the broken ribs from Beldia's kick started to reform, I was now able to get up and stand on my own. Darkness right now was fighting Beldia, while her defense was the greatest, as she claims, she couldn't hit a thing no matter how hard she tried. I had to go back.

As I dug my sword out of the ground and held it in my left hand, I started to walk over to Darkness to help her out and defeat Beldia. Kazuma on the other hand stood in front of me with a glare and said, "Are you an Idiot!? Are you you really going to go back just to get yourself killed!?"

I wasn't sure how to answer, was I really going to go and get myself killed, or was I going to get in her way and get both of us killed? I had to think over this for a while to get some kind of clue on what to do. As I am right now, I couldn't let Darkness handle this on her own, but I don't have enough firepower to finish him off myself. What do I do!?

As I looked towards where Darkness was fighting Beldia, she was almost in the same position I was, but the only difference was that she was able to tank the attacks Beldia sent at her, I guess she wasn't bluffing.

Kazuma would then shout towards the mages near the gates of the town, "Hey! create an opportunity to attack! You too Adventurers! Darkness! I'm going to try to make an opening for an attack! Hold on until then!" I was confused in what Kazuma was doing, but Kazuma turned towards me and said "Let's work together to find an opportunity to beat him ok? No more lone wolfing as of now, got it?" I nodded as I observed Beldia from afar to see if I could find any openings in his attack, but it seemed that he was able to cover all his bases in terms of defense easily.

The Mages would now chant their magic to try and create the opportunity, but just as they chanted, Beldia shouted with his palm facing the Mages, and shouted "You'll all die in one week! Stop Chanting!" The mages that were chanting before were hit by the same spell Darkness got hit with last week, and other mages that wanted to chant now stayed quiet, this guy played dirty.

"Playtime's over now, Crusader!" Beldia then threw it's head up high, and started to swing it sword faster and harder on Darkness. Kazuma was looking in the same direction and said, "It's his head...His head is his weakness!"

It all started to make sense now, his head was detached from his body so he could be able to throw it in the air and cover all his defenses!

As I was now realising this, Darkness was starting to have the disadvantage as she was getting pushed back. I started to run towards Darkness who had her armoured damaged from too much tanking as Beldia was hacking away at her sword.

Beldia would soon do the same thing to Darkness as he did to me which was, drag his sword vertically and slash it upwards to make her lose her grip on the sword, and lung towards her. Darkness didn't have enough time to ready her sword to block against the his lunge, so I did what I had to do...

What happened next was something I never thought I'd do in terms of keeping my identity safe, but without thinking too hard in this I had no other choice…

...to block Beldia's Long Sword lunge that aimed for Darkness' face, I managed to block it using my Demon Arm to stop the blade, of course the blade didn't go through my arm, but the blade hit the sling on my arm hard enough to the point where it was now vaporized…

My Demon Arm that I kept hidden for 3 weeks was now exposed to everyone present in the battlefield, Beldia, the adventurers, Darkness, and Kazuma and Aqua who were standing side by side.

Beldia was now laughing uncontrollably, and removed his sword from my arm. "Hahahaha! Well, well, well! What a pleasant surprise this is! Not only do I find myself on the battlefield with some incredible talent, but even a Demon himself is among one them! I honestly thought that you were the odd one out in your party in terms of strength, boy. But it seems that I was right wither way!" Beldia shouted as he was having the time of his life, me on the other hand…

Well, the secrets out now. I turned towards Darkness who was staring at my glowing blue arm, and told her "You managed to protect me from dying as a job of a Crusader, now let me repay you back…" I started to crack my knuckles on my Demon Arm and walk towards Beldia, it's been a good minute since I've last used my Arm, so I'll make sure to take him out quick before dying now.

My secret was out, there was no need to hold back. I can use my abilities to their full extent and not worry about my identity being exposed.

I was now face to face against Beldia again, the Boss of the Demon King Army, but this time, I was able to use my Demon Arm that I tried to keep hidden from everyone just so I wouldn't get hunted down for being a Demon Just as Eris said.

I took a deep a deep breath and filled my lungs with the clean air around me, and exhaled. Out of fear, I started to hold my necklace that was in my shirt with my Demon Arm that was shaking. There would probably be multiple outcomes after this battle:

A) I beat the Dullahan only to get hunted down

B) I beat the Dullahan only to get exiled

C)I beat the Dullahan and everyone learns to accept me

D)I die and risked my life for something

E)I die and risked my life for nothing

Although I really hoped that the middle options were an actual possibility, chances are the first and last choices are the only ones I get to choose from.

Already deciding what to do for the fight, I then readied myself for my possibly last battle, I was terrified to the point where my breathing isn't normal and my heartbeat skyrocketed to 130 bpm.

Was I really ready to die? Am I really sure I wanted to throw my life away just to save some people that I only met for 4 weeks? Can I really do this!?

No, no I can't! I was scared, terrified! Not knowing how beautiful this world can be since I was only showed its bad side, but this was still a life I wanted to live! I don't want to die again, not yet!

Someone please don't let me die on my own again...


	12. Team Up and Tsunami - Vol 1 End

I'm so scared. Facing off against Beldia, a Demon Boss Dullahan that's probably way too high level for me to handle, even if all of the adventurers here combined our powers to try and defeat him, I don't think we have a chance to be able to win…

My left hand was starting to shake a bit as I was still in a fighting stance to face off with Beldia. I really tried as much as I could to not show it since it'll only be used against me, but small amount of it was slipping out no matter how hard I tried to hold it back.

My mind was racing, and I couldn't think straight at a severe situation like this:

What should I do!? Can I really beat him? Am I even fast enough to dodge his attacks? I'm so scared...What can I do? How long can I last? Am I even able to stop him for a bit? Is this the end for me? Someone please don't let me die alone again...I DON'T WANNA DIE!

As I was still in place with my hands trembling in fear, I heard the sound of broken armour move beside me, It was Darkness who was still battered from her previous fight and was starting to bleed from both her head and her palms, she readied her sword for the fight while I stood there confused.

Why is she doing this? She doesn't have to do this, she could just back away and let me distract him for a bit to find a way to damage his head. She didn't need to risk her life for someone as pointless as I am now that my identity was exposed.

I was going to ask her those questions, but before I was able to utter a single letter, she told me, "As a Crusader, we never retreat when protecting those behind us. I'll never compromise on that, not now or ever! It's okay to scared on the battlefield, it doesn't mean you're weak, it just means you're human. Demon or not, you're still my comrade." She told me that last bit a gentle smile.

Right there at that moment, although my mind and mental state was still overridden with fear, it felt nice to have someone tell me that. I wasn't ridiculed for being "One of them", or "A spy to give them an advantage" but still considered human. I really did feel like crying there in the spot to let out some emotions, but a small part of me still held onto the emotions I had to stop it from having it all break down.

"Kazuma told me that it's weak point is it's head, that should've been obvious from the start. Please, help me hold it off so he can think up a plan to take him down" I pleaded to Darkness, without looking towards me, she said "Of course! The way the Dullahan chips away slowly at my Armour to slowly humiliate me is exciting. I've never experienced this type of Sexual Harassment play, but it's not bad!" She was starting to blush from saying that, if we weren't in this situation I would've snapped at this point, but all it did was make me laugh a bit, I guess I was distracted from her perversion that my heart rate slowed down a bit and made it a bit more normal.

Darkness then stood in front of me with her sword ready to fight again, and said "Let me take all the Damage from here, while my armour is damaged I can still take much more damage than you. You'll counter him and dodge while he's focused on me, got it?" I nodded to her and said "Got it" while readying my sword for another fight, I would then shout behind me "KAZUMA! Think up a plan while me and Darkness buy some time!" He seemed to understand since he went to some of the adventurers that were still able to fight and pointed to our direction. The group looked a bit hesitant when they looked over, I couldn't blame them. I brought this on myself after all…

I readied myself and Exceeded my sword to level 2. I know that I won't be able to any damage whatsoever, but the flames that come out of it might be enough of a distraction for him, and let me get a few seconds of breathing room. My Demon Arm can probably be use some use here, but the only weak point it has was its head, and they distance he throws it it too far for my arm to reach when using Snatch. My only choice would be to use it when it either falls down or when he's distracted, but he'll know when he's distracted since his head will see all of the battlefield.

This was a tough situation that I couldn't think much of at the moment, but when in doubt, just go with the flow and figure it out on the way.

I steadied my breath a bit by breathing in and out a couple if times, my hand stopped shaking, but the fear was still there. The only difference is that I'm not taking him on, on my own. I've got Darkness ready to be the perverted shield, and the Questionable teen Kazuma who is supposed to think of a plan to get rid of this guy.

I'd call this a failed situation with no hope, but part of me knows that something will go right for us, it just has to be.

Beldia that was still in front of us, looked like he was waiting patiently for us. His sword was dug into the ground, and he was staring at us for the entire time that we were talking. Me and Darkness would now be walking towards him cautiously while trying to out maneuver him if possible, when he saw us walking towards us he said, "Well now, are you finally done with your quarrel? Both the Demon and Crusader working together to take down another Demon? I'd never thought I'd see the day where impossibilities would just go up and vanish into thin air. Well, no matter, I'll just strike down the both if you right here and now." He dug his Long sword out of ground and readied it in his right hand, while priming his left arm to throw his head into the air.

It was now or never, me and Darkness would be sprinting at full force to face Beldia!

To my surprise it seemed that he wouldn't move while me and Darkness are sprinting at him, he's either baiting us or wanting to see what we'd do. We have to be cautious regardless of what choice he'd pick.

By the time we were about 5 ft away from him, Darkness tried to go for a Diagonal slash. With the amount of force she put into her swing, it'd seem like it do a lot of damage, but I was sorely disappointed when she completed her slash only for it to land about 3 ft to the left of Beldia, and cut into the earth pretty deeply.

When the three of us realized what just happened, Darkness started to blush madly from embarrassment while holding the same position she ended with from the slash. I turned towards her and said, "He wasn't even moving and yet you still missed, stick to the plan and let me do the cutting, at least he won't be as disappointed"

I know that we were in a dire situation where we had a pretty good chance that we could die at at any moment, but for her to make a blunder at right now….I probably should've expected something like this.

Beldia still had his head in his left arm, and his armour was shaking in anger, "Tell me, are you REALLY trying to make me kill everyone here from blind rage!? If so, then you're doing one hell of a good job doing so!" Beldia would then swing his sword towards darkness trying for a horizontal slash with a lot of force, since I was close enough to use my Demon Arm I used Snatch to have a transparent version of it to grab the sword by the blade to prevent it from hitting Darkness.

"Don't forget that I'm still here pal!" I said on a strained voice as I was trying to keep Beldia's Sword from hitting Darkness.

Seeing the opportunity to do so, I would soon try to disarm Beldia by dragging his sword away from him. Sadly this wouldn't work, since he was much stronger than me, he was able to make me let go of the sword and swing it at me with a downwards slash.

I was barely able to dodge roll out of it, and was separated from Darkness for a short while until she ran to my side to try and be the shield she happily claimed to be.

"Hmm, even when both of you are teaming up against me, it still doesn't prove enough of a challenge, enough playing around! Time to take this seriously!" Beldia said...again? Didn't he say that when he fought off against Darkness the first time or am I going Crazy?

I couldn't really question this for the moment since he now threw his head up in the air and grabbed his sword with both of his hands. He was probably going to do the same attacks to us earlier when we fought him off. Me and Darkness prepared ourselves as he started to sprint at us with his sword aiming to diagonally slice us.

What Beldia did instead was AoE (Area of Effect) attack where he made a 180' horizontal slash that blasted a lot of pressured air towards us. While the attack wasn't near us to actually hurt us, it did blow up a lot dirt and dust that was on the ground to blind us.

I couldn't see that well in the dust and dirt that he kicked up since some of it got in my left eye. Wiping off the dust, I was soon greeted by Beldia's headless body swinging his sword at me wildly. I guess he couldn't see well in the dust either since he a couple of subtle openings for me to strike at, so taking this opportunity to do so, once again I grabbed his sword with my Demon Arm and started hacking away at the joint point of his armour with my sword in my left hand.

While it looked like it had no effect on him whatsoever, it seemed like part of his armour was starting to crack little by little, and before you know it, very small chips where started to fall off. By the time the dust settled, even though metaphorically it didn't yet, Beldia was able to see his body again as he pried my hand off the sword again and started making more accurate and precise movements and swings to try and kill me.

Darkness, who could now see what was going on, managed to step in and block about of the attacks dealt by Beldia. Even though they were blocked, she still took damage from them and still had blood spilling out into the battlefield from her head and palms.

As Beldia was currently clashing sword with Darkness, I ran up next to him with both hands on my sword being drug from the ground going for a upwards slash where I'd aim for the spot that I was striking before. When I got close enough, I would slice my sword upwards with the Ex. still in use and heavily hit the joint parts of the arm where I would've been launched into the air (Ex.1 High Roller Vers. 2)

This would make Beldia's body lose balance for a short while, but this chance was all Darkness needed for her to ram herself into Beldia armour to push him back for some breathing room. I was still in the air, with a clear shot of jamming my sword into the empty space where his head would've been, I pointed my sword Downwards, and used the rest of my Ex. to try and dig my sword inside the exposed body (Double Down.)

This would've been a good shot to deal a lot of damage, but since this was the guy who had his head in the clouds, literally, he saw what I was trying to pull and blocked his exposed body with his sword. Our blades made a loud _Clang_ when it came into contact, but when it did, Beldia took the broad side of his sword and launched me to where Darkness was. We both crashed into each other from him throwing me off his blade and into her, luckily he was short on time and had to catch his head from falling before he was able to attack us again.

I got up from laying on Darkness, and helped her up as we were battered from fighting Beldia's body, I shout back to where Kazuma and the other were, "Kazuma! No offense, but could you hurry it up a bit! I'm not sure how much longer we can last from this guy!" Darkness on the other hand, "No! It's fine! I can go in for a bit longer!" She's enjoying this too muc- oh god, she's drooling!

"I'm Trying you know! It's hard enough to rally up people when they're either cursed, too scared, or suspicious of Tsukiyo's 'Abnormality'! Also Darkness now isn't the time or place for your freaky fetish! We've got a crisis here!" Kazuma shouted back, Darkness shouted back while being a bit flustered, "Y-You should consider the time and place Kazuma! I'm being ravaged and humiliated by the Dullahan! Both of you are ganging up on me, what are YOU trying to do!"

Beldia, no longer in anger but in shock, pointed at Darkness and said "What do you think you're assuming woman! I have nothing to do with your 'fantasies'!", Kazuma being fed up with Darkness' 'imagination' pointed his hand and shouted "No one wants to do anything with you, you damn pervert! 'Create Water'!" Water that imitated a hose shot out of his hand and smacked Darkness straight in the face, but when some of the leftover water went over towards Beldia, he seemed to want to avoid it like it was the plague. Interesting….

Darkness then smiled while saying silently, "This really isn't bad at all! You're really good Kazuma, I've made the right choice to choose this party!" She would then shout to him, "This is something that I'm really fine with, but please consider the time and place! We should do this sometime else!" Darkness said as she panted with glee, but Kazuma retorted with "This isn't a type of play, but part of a plan! 'Freeze'!" His hand was up again facing us where a cold stream of air would shoot past us and aim for the ground Beldia was at.

The water that was placed there would now be frozen, making it harder to move around. "Well, that's something I didn't expect, Adventurer! But regardless, freezing the ground around me isn't going to stop me from moving or dodging." Beldia boasted with confidence, but Kazuma wore a smirk on his face as if his true intentions wasn't found out yet.

"Stopping you is enough for a short while is enough for me! I just need one clear shot! 'Steal'!" Kazuma shouted as the bright light in his hands lit up, but to his disappointment, nothing was in his hands.

"Well, that was sad wasn't it? I'd do a slow cap to show my sarcasm, but I sort if have my hands full at the moment. So this'll have to do for the moment to show for all your efforts." Beldia said as he opened his palm that had a dark aura emitting from it. Great, now Kazuma made himself a liability!

Kazuma frozen in this situation from fear was standing still, since Darkness was too heavy because of the remaining armour that was still left on her along with her broadsword, I had to run towards Beldia that was focusing on Kazuma to stop him from getting cursed.

When I got close to him he seemed to have already noticed me running towards me and made his open palm that still emitted dark aura, a closed palm to try and punch me. Using the transparent version of my Demon Arm, I seemed to have blocked the punch for the most part, by was getting pushed back by the immense strength that Beldia had built up from his lifetime both as a Human and a Dullahan.

What I didn't expect to happen is the fact that some of the Dark Aura that emitted from his fist managed to get drained to my arm that was glowing a mix of navy and light blue. At that moment it seemed that the Dullahan was very surprised when that happened, and asked "Hey! What did you just do to my curse that was stored in my hand! Answer me Demon!" He seemed very frustrated since he threw his head up in the sky quickly and started to swing his sword around more violently.

The swings were getting dangerously close to me as I was trying to dodge them to save my head from detaching from my body. He seemed to have developed a pattern of multiple swings that would usually end in a lunge attack that was almost too quick to be dodge, but only almost.

I kept track of what swing he would do, and tried to anticipate what might be happening next: Diagonal, Diagonal, Horizontal, Diagonal, Vertical, 180', Diagonal, Diagonal, Lunge! It soon became a little bit easier to dodge some of his attacks, and at one point I even managed to to do a couple of slices at his armour that did no damage whatsoever.

Of course, I still had Darkness on the sidelines, but at this point I don't think I needed her for this part since I sort of got the hang of it. I continued to dodge for the next couple of minutes before Beldia made another lunge towards me, the only difference was that I managed to dodge quick enough to his right, and use my Demon Arm to punch him.

The results of the punch was way different that what I expected. What I expected was the punch moving him back a couple of inches and hurting him a bit, but what I got was a legit mini explosion!

When I punched Beldia straight into the chest of his armoured body, the exact moment when my transparent fist hit his chest, it seemed to have a mini explosion where it bursted into a blue-ish flame and left a noticeable burn mark on his armour with a dent in it. My arm for some reason returned to its normal glow and was no longer glowing as bright as it was before.

I wasn't sure in what happened, and I guess neither did he since he was just as Surprised as I was when I did that, "Holy Shit! Did you see that!?" I said in awe, Beldia responded angrily, "Of course I did! I FELT that! What did you do!" I was both excited and curious since I did something pretty badass and wanted to know what I did to try and do it again.

After a couple of seconds of thinking it out, the only logical/game mechanic thing that came to mind was the Charge shot that was in the game. Since my arm glowed the same way it did in the game, and I didn't really have the Blue Rose with me, I guess that the Charge Shot was now that Charge Punch. Hey, if I upgrade it enough could I be a bootleg Saitama?

As I was standing still in my thoughts, thinking of the greatest superhero known to man, Beldia interrupted me with a Vertical sword slash that nearly sliced my head off. It would've happened if it wasn't for Darkness blocking the sword with her own. She shouted at me in a serious tone, "Stop daydreaming out in the open! Get serious if you want to take him down!" I stopped daydreaming about Caped-Baldy and continued to help Darkness fight off Beldia.

Then out of nowhere, a stream of water came from the opposite direction and hit me in the face.

Hold up, what?

I looked to where the stream of water came from, and seemed to be from the hand of the perverted thief Kazuma, I was so confused. "Look Kazuma, I get that you want revenge from earlier, but now isn't the time to fuck around! I might actually die and will haunt the shit out of you!" I shouted towards Kazuma, Kazuma then shouted back "It's Water!" Water?

As I was confused as to what he meant by that, the sword that was weighing down in me and Darkness seemed to have disappeared and move about 4 feet away from us….ohhh, now I get it….

What would be happening from right now to the next 5-7 minutes would be...interesting...to say the least. It reminded me of when I was 10, me and my friends would play in the park with water guns and try to be cool by dodging he streams of water that would head towards us.

" 'Create Water'! 'Create Water'! 'Create Water'! " Kazuma shouted as Beldia was dodging every water beam cannon shot at him and avoid it at all costs, why? I'm not sure If I wanted to know the reason or not…

"Hey Aqua! you help out too! You're some kind of Goddess of Water right? Do something, unless that title you said was just a title! It'd be a shame if your 'Godly' power were all a ruse!" Kazuma said in a dick-ish tone, Aqua took the bait and replied "A ruse!? Well I'll show you a whole flood if you want, you HikkiNEET bastard! Witness the true power of the Goddess of Water!" Wait, no a flood is a bit much…

Aqua would then start chanting a spell, and shit went down when she started. The clouds grew a dark grey shade, the earth was trembling, and the atmosphere was very tense just like when Megumin would cast her spell. Aqua then shouted, " 'Sacred Create Water!' " All hell would break loose since she literally made a flood and had it hit everyone, it was even worse for me and Darkness since we were the closest to Beldia, Aqua's target.

Because of the massive volume and impact of the flood, it was too much for me to handle and knocked me out, while nearly drowning me.

When I regained my consciousness, I seemed to be on my back and near the gate completely drenched from the flood water, and with me near the gate was every adventurer in town staring at me, and probably my Arm. They seemed to be startled when I woke up since the ones that were up front, closest to me, seemed to have backed up a bit.

Yeah, I expected something like this. When I tried to stand up and walk to where my party was, I kneeled over and started throwing up a lot of water that seemed to have been in my body while I was knocked out. By the time I was done throwing up, my gut was burning just as hot as the Red Queen on level 3 Exceed, and made it a lot more painful for me to walk.

I slowly got up from heaving a lot of water, and limped my way to where the group was, the Adventurers that surrounded me stepped aside and watched me slowly make my way the loudest group. Kazuma was trying to strangle Aqua from the excess amount of water she summoned, Darkness was on the ground with a red face completely at peace, and Megumin was still on the ground trying to keep her head up from falling in a small puddle, surprisingly though, no Beldia. Was he defeated, did he run away, or was he washed away from the flood?

By the time they noticed that I was watching them, Kazuma ran up to me and asked "Hey! How are you feeling? You didn't wake up for 2 hours, so we got worried….Hey, what's wrong?" Kazuma said that last sentence in a confused tone, so I asked him "Doesn't it bother you that I'm a Demon? Someone that's part of one of the most hated race in this world? Doesn't that bother you at all?" Part of me didn't want to hear his answer, but another part wanted, no _needed_ , to hear this answer. I wasn't sure why, but I just needed to…

"No, of course not! I mean Aqua and probably some other adventurers do, but they don't matter. I'm a reincarnated, just like you, that won't change, so I can sort of understand why your part Demon. When you're ready, you can tell the rest of us and make us understand even more, We're Friends aren't we?" Kazuma said as he had a smile on when he said that last sentence, Darkness stood up and was now next to Kazuma saying the same thing, "We're comrades, you're still the same person to me, nothing more, nothing less!" My eyes started to water a bit as they said that, I guess I really do have some people I can lean on from time to time. I wiped my eyes before they were able to fall on my face, I had to be strong, so they can lean on me when they needed it too.

Well, one problem has been taken care of, the other…

I looked back to where the other adventurers were and and they were still staring at me. I knew I had to confront them, but wasn't sure how. Well, improvising is always an option, but there's a high chance that my words might get taken out of context. Coming out and telling them straight will probably work, but there's a chance that they might rally up against me. Of course, my party will try and help, but I don't want to drag them into the mess I made myself.

I decided to confront them head on. The more I try and avoid something, the worse it gets, and I want to avoid making it as worse as it can get since I have no idea what this town is capable of if they all work together.

I walked towards the adventurers and breathed in deeply, and exhaled. I then spoke loud enough for everyone to hear:

"Listen, I am a Demon. I do not wish to harm anyone here, nor do I want to take over this town. I am NOT part of the Demon King's Army, and I don't plan on joining him whatsoever. If you have a grudge against me because of me being a Demon, then so be it. I don't care. Just do me a favor, and the only favor that I ask of: Don't go after my party because of me. They don't deserve it no matter how much you're against me, especially the blonde one, Don't do it no matter how much she begs for it, please, don't make her personality worse than what it already is. Lastly, I wish to live in peace, if anyone tries to harm either me or my teammates, just know that I will NOT hesitate to take you down myself, if reported to the authorities then I will claim self-defense. That's all I want to say, I hope that take my words into some form of consideration."

A couple of adventurers look to themselves and said, "Well, I don't think any of us have a grudge against you, even if you're a Demon. I think it might be the opposite, we're indebted to you guys. Despite being a low class Swordsman you took on the Dullahan by yourself and with the help of your party, you even managed to defeat him! This is something huge, almost impossible for beginners like us who've been here for more than 3 years. We would like to say thank you, for saving us, and more importantly saving this town." Almost all the adventurers in front of me then started to kneel on one knee. I was really uncomfortable with this….

"You guys can stand up, no need for kneeling, I'm still a beginner like you guys. Come on let's head into town. We gotta make sure that the flood the idiot priest summoned didn't damage too much." I said to the group of adventurers who were now standing up, but they seemed to take it the wrong way and say "Yeah! Let's head into the Tavern and drink!" All of them started to cheer and walk towards the Tavern, except for me who was glaring at them for being idiots. Seeing as I had no choice, I had to follow them back since there was nowhere else to go for the moment.

 _Tsukiyo would follow the rest of the Adventurers back to the Tavern where they would all celebrate the defeat of the Dullahan and leave the battlefield. However, a figure in the distance witnessed the events that went down and watched Tsukiyo and his Demon Arm at work. "Ahahahaha! oh man, this'll be one hell of a battle when we meet. Though a fight every now and then does make life a little bit more interesting, doesn't it kid?" This figure would soon head into the forest to make his back back to wherever he came, with his red coat flowing from the wind._

The Tavern was now full of adventurers who were drinking, eating, singing, and cheering to their heart's content. Linda, who was now next to me, took a look to my arm and said "Well, I guess this makes sense", I looked confuse for a moment before she continued "On the first day that you got your adventures card, you told me that your broken arm was slowly healing. Because of how advanced some magic users are, fixing a broken bone would be as simple as writing a letter. I knew you were hiding something, but this is….much more than I Anticipated…" She was a bit uneasy when she said that, "Don't worry, I didn't plan on taking over this town before I got my card, and I don't plan in taking it over now. Sorry I had to hide this from all of you, but I was told that people aren't as forgiving when a 'Demon' pops up out if nowhere and asks to be an Adventurer." I said back, she seemed to understand for the most part, but as long as people understand, that's enough for me.

"Oh, by the way, two things: For future reference, make sure to stay as far away from the Axis Cult. When you mentioned people not being forgiving towards 'Demons', the Axis Cult are the type of people that come to mind. I know that you're a harmless person and nice young man, and the rest of the staff do so too, but make sure to steer clear from them. They're trouble to everyone, Demon or not." Linda said as she told me in a concerned voice, I would soon ask "Ok, what's the second thing you need?" Linda had an apologetic face as she told me the second thing she needed to say "Can you help us out for a bit? There are a lot of customers here celebrating the defeat of a Demon Boss, so we need as much help as we can. We just need someone to deliver food to the tables as fast as possible. Please?"

I didn't have much of a choice since it was sort of my fault, but not really my fault for bringing them here. "Yeah, sure why not. Now that my Demon arm is exposed, I can bring twice as much as before and do things quicker." I said, Linda seemed to appreciate the work that I did here since I was always relied on to an extent. I would soon head to the break room and put my sword in one of the corners before heading out to take orders and deliver food to their tables.

A few hours later, Linda would make an announcement, she then stood out of her booth where all the adventurers would stay silent and listen to what she had to say. She would then say in a loud voice: "I will now start with the award ceremony. Satou Kazuma and his Party, please come up and accept your rewards!" Me, Kazuma, and the others would stand in front of Linda who had 3 bags and a certificate in her hands, "To honour you and your parties accomplishments for defeating Demon Boss Dullahan Beldia, the guild awards them 300 million Eris!" I was dumbfounded when I heard what Linda just said, it took a whole minute to accept what she said was real, and not a dream/joke.

Linda would soon give Me, Darkness, Megumin, a bag of money, while giving Kazuma the certificate, or at least what I thought was a certificate. She would soon explain what Kazuma was holding, She said in an apologetic voice "Well, there's a small problem with your award money. Since your archpriest summoned a flood to weaken the Dullahan, some of the excess water flooded some of the houses, stores, and buildings, both inside and outside the wall and are now destroyed. The quality of the damage was catastrophic. So what we had to do was take the award money and add it to compensation costs, we decided to not charge you fully, but only partially. The amount that you earned was 300 million, and the compensation cost is 340 million."

I could not believe what I was hearing, I had a hard time wondering whether or not to comfort, tease, or straight up leave Kazuma because of compensation costs. Kazuma looked like all life had drained from his face, and we were trying to leave quietly one by one, before he grabbed Aqua's collar and proceeded to strangle her. 40 million Eris to earn back up, just for the guild to take, that really sucks. Before I left completely, I whispered into Kazuma's ear "You better start earning the big bucks my dude, your in the deepest pile of shit known to man." He then looked at me as I was now sprinting at full speed to get out of the Tavern and head to the hotel to rest up for the day.

Today was probably the most I've been emotionally and physically strained. By the time I got to my room, I took my boots and sword off and went straight to bed.

I would soon wake up the next day to start another Adventure in this pretty shitty fantasy world.

 **VOLUME 1 - END**

(sorry for the single chapter this time, my workplace upped my hours by 2 this week and I thought that this was a pretty good time for the end of Vol. 1. I'm still going to continue the story and go straight to Vol. 2, but I'm going to take a 1 week rest period since I'm feeling sort of drained in both imagination (lol, what imagination, this is 90% Light novel) and sleep. You won't get a chapter next week, but the week after that you'll either get 2 very long chapters or 3 chapters, idk I'll figure something out. But other than that, thanks for reading Vol 1, of my shitty story, here's to a another shitty volume! Take care, and don't do stupid shit. Also forget what I said in the last chapter, I'm gonna take a little bit more from DMC4, I really can't help myself when adding shit in to make it more interesting.

P.S: I know that I forgot to add in the link for the moveset reference, but at this point you should have a general sense of what each move looks like, especially those who've already played the game and have them memorised for some reason.)


	13. Debt, Samurai's, and Trigger's

Axel town, the Town for beginners.

As the name suggests, it's a town for beginner Adventurers to grow and become novice adventurers. The town was big, it had friendly people, the food and drinks were good, and the buyables were at a good price sometimes.

Recently though, a group of adventurers defeated a Demon King Army Boss, and saved the town. I was part of that group, and the group that I was part of was dysfunctional mess. We had a Archpriest who couldn't do shit 80% of the time, a suicide bomber who could only use her spell "Explosion" once per day, an infuriating Crusader who can't hit shit moving or not and gets off to pain and humiliation, a low level thief who has a rotten personality and uses his brain almost never, and me, a "new born" Demon who has to clean up their shit if I hadn't already done too much damage to myself that nearly kills me.

Me, archpriest, and thiefy boi would be gathered in the Tavern, trying to survive the 40 million eris debt placed on us.

"Money….I need money…." Kazuma groaned, he had his face on the table where he had eyes that looked just about dead to me.

"Yeah, no shit. You have to pay off the debt from Aqua's tsunami, and Aqua's debt from the tavern, you still owe 250,000 from her booze and wine" I said to Kazuma as I rested my head on my now exposed Demon arm. I know already said this before, but his luck really does suck. What god did he piss off? Other than Aqua of course….

"Seriously, you need to be taking better care of me, a Goddess. Living in the stables isn't fit for me! That and the wine in this tavern isn't as good as one of the other stores, even if they're more expensive, spoil me more!" Aqua said mockingly as he was now pouting.

If it were me in this situation I probably would've gone to another town and start a new life alone and get new teammates, but because there isn't another town in FUCKING MILES UPON MILES, there wasn't much of a choice.

Kazuma then got up from his seat and started imitating a vice on Aqua head, and said with his teeth gritting, "This debt that I have is all because of you! I'm piss poor, nearly froze to death in the stables, and have debt coming out my ass! And you want to be spoiled!? It's just about to be winter, and most adventurers have started living in lodges. We're still in stables freezing to death paying off 40 million! Get your head out of your unholy ass!" o o f, that's a lot of damage…

But because I like being a dick sometimes to Kazuma, "Well on the bright side, now you have a real goal to actually strive for instead of 'Defeating the Demon King'" Kazuma looked back at me and said "You stay out of this, don't make me steal your sword and make you Mitsurugi 2.0" I groaned as I heard Motherfuckers name.

Seeing as Kazuma was now distracted, Aqua removed Kazuma's fist from her head and hid under the table that we were sitting at. she would soon complain the same thing she would say from the past week. "Why are we getting the short end of the stick!? It's not my fault my superb performance destroyed the town! If it wasn't for me you'd all die from the Demon boss, and all that without a thanks! I should just complain to the desk lady to to get rid of the debt!"

"No you fucking won't," I said to Aqua, "Because if you do, then I'll use my Demon Arm to hold you in place and kick you out. Don't forget that I'm part of the staff now, and won't hesitate to throw your ass out in the gutter." Because of my contributions to the Tavern staff and the Beldia boss fight, I was sort of made a member of the Tavern, which some of my food was discounted, and I was able to bounce drunk people out if they got too wild.

"Hmpf, like some puny Demon can lay hands on a Goddess like me, I should purify you and make you yield to the power of the Axis Cult!" Aqua said in a disgusted voice, I would soon kneel in front of her and say "You want to take this outside and try it out? No guarantee that I'll hold back for someone as useless as you y'know?" I said in threatening voice, Kazuma joined in with me and said "If you think someone so high and mighty like you are worthy of being a Goddess, then go clear our debts for us. Go on, I'll be waiting…" Kazuma being Kazuma and bringing up debt to her made her lose her attitude and begged to us on the ground, "Please don't abandon me, 40 million is too much to pay off! I'm sorry please!"

"Come on, it's early in the morning, people are going to stare if you keep...oh they aren't staring. Looks like they gotten used to you three." "Got any quests that we can do?"

I looked to the side and saw our other companions head towards us. It was the Masochist and terrorist bomber, also known as Darkness and Megumin. Megumin was in her usual clothes, a small red dress that was handmade, a cloak/cape that was a bit tattered, and a Final Fantasy Hat that was a bootleg Vivi. Darkness on the other hand seemed to be in casual clothing, probably because of Beldia nearly destroying her armour, where she wore a black blouse and a black skirt that seemed a little short. Along with that she was wearing flats on her feet with black stockings. The only thing out of the ordinary was her great sword on her waist.

I know her name is 'Darkness', but this is too literal. She looked pretty good on the outside, but nothing could hide what was on the inside, so her looks were cancelled out.

As I stood up from kneeling down at Aqua, Kazuma replied to them, "No not yet, but I don't think we need to rush with finding a quest. Most adventurers are either done for the season or drunk in here. Me and Tsukiyo will check the board, you guys can wait here."

"I think there is a rush since your 40 million down but…" I said under my breath, Kazuma looked at me and glared, I held both my hands in the air and raised them about shoulder height and said "I didn't say anything, nothing at all." Man, am I a dick.

Since there wasn't much adventurers doing quests, the board seemed to be more filled than before, the only bad part was that there was more high level quests than there were low level ones.

Some of these quests seemed to be for the more veteran adventurers that have a grasp on their team and have tactics for easy battles. 2 things we don't have whatsoever.

After looking at the board for 7-10 minutes, me and Kazuma seemed to have found 2 quests possibly easy enough for us to beat, but the quests themselves seem too suspicious:

 _"Mobile Fortress Destroyer is approaching. Recruiting scouts for reconnaissance regarding its route. Scouts wanted, low levels are ok."_

As we took both of the quests back to the table, me and Kazuma we still confused on what a Mobile Destroyer was, even though the name basically gives it away. Kazuma would soon ask a pretty dumb question, "What's this Destroyer?" Megumin would soon reply "The Destroyer is a Destroyer" NO SHIT, Darkness would give a better explanation and say "A giant Fortress that roams around and Destroys anything around it. Popular with the kids" Damn, the kids here are hardcore. What was popular in my childhood was Beyblades and Naruto running...Damn, I'm old….

"We could do the recon mission, but last time I tried one on my own, the info given was vague and false. Ended up nearly dying and fighting my way out." I said, Kazuma seemed hesitant towards doing the mission and ended up replying with "We could, but with this group I'd be impossible to get near this Destroyer and try and figure what where it might go. Multiple directions and possibilities, too much of a hassle to deal with" Fair enough, Kazuma would soon take out the other quest that was possible but still suspicious:

 _Snow Fairy Extermination - 100,000 Eris per Fairy_

 _Location: Western Plains 6.8 miles west from forest, 5.8 miles north towards mountain area._

I asked, "What are Snow Fairies?" Aqua would answer my question with a brief rundown of what they are, "Snow Fairies are weak monsters. They're found in places where it snows a lot, they shatter when hit with a sword. They're not really dangerous, but defeating one will make spring arrive one half a day earlier." Damn, if something like that applied to Japan, I'd be a Serial Killer for Snow Fairies. As I was thinking to myself, Aqua eyes lit up for a second and said, "Hold on one moment" and left the Tavern smiling and eager for something, that's bad…

Snow Fairies are generally in snowy areas, so my boots should be able to handle the snow, I just need a thicker coat and cloak to wear. Since we were onboard for the Snow Fairy Quest, me and Kazuma headed for the tailor shop to buy (with my money) thicker clothes for the cold.

After spending an hour and a half in the shop, me and Kazuma exited the shop and started to head towards the Western Gate to meet up with the others. What I had on was a slightly thicker long sleeved blue shirt, a thicker cloak that was more of a trench coat that went down to my thighs, and a scarf made of fur that covered up to the bridge my nose. For extra warmth I'd put my sword on Exceed 1 to make sure my body temp is slightly higher for when we'd get to the really snowy area.

As we made our way to the Western Plain, I started to have an uncomfortable feeling. This isn't the first time I felt like this, it was mainly because of my demon arm being out in the open for so long. For the past month, I've always had my arm hidden in a sling, that was now destroyed, but now that it's out in the open for everyone to see, it starts to get sort of uncomfortable. I've been trying to get used to the feeling for the past week since it's now exposed, but this feeling keeps returning and I always have this habit of trying to hide it. I keep this to myself sometimes since it's more of a personal problem, but I just have to calm down and not overthink this. My party knows about my arm, the staff know about my arm, and almost all the adventurers in Axel know about my arm, but why am I still so uncomfortable though? I take a deep breath and exhale slowly to stop feeling this way. Darkness notices me doing this and asks, "Are you okay?" I reply, "Yeah, just trying to not overthink things, sorry" Old habits die hard I guess...

It took a good hour and forty-five minutes to reach the area that was completely covered in snow, the tree branches had snow in them with no traces of leaves anywhere, the entire plain was a white blanket that looked so soft you could grab it and feel the softness embrace you as you held it in your hand. It was times like these that makes you glad that you're living life in beautiful world, and I wish I had my phone on me to remember such a place. What seemed unordinary in this place was the Snow Fairies that roamed around here, just small balls of clouds the size of a baseball with marble white eyes, it was almost too cruel to kill them for an extra half a day of spring. When one came very close to me, it bumped into my chest very softly and started going to the other direction.

Part of me wanted to not kill them and let them be, but 2 things popped up into my mind as I was thinking of them: Spring = Good, Cold with no heaters = Hell. I made up my mind to be a Serial Snow Fairy Killer.

I then drew my sword, The Red Queen, that was still heated up in Ex 1, and took a horizontal slash towards any snow fairies in the way. As soon as I swung, and use up the Ex in the sword, the snow fairies in the way seemed to have dodged in swiftly and not disintegrate from the heat on my sword. At this moment I knew this quest would be tedious as hell.

Looking over to the side and I see Kazuma looking away from Darkness and Aqua, this isn't the pervy Kazuma I know...But then again, when one of your teammates are covered in jars and has a net to catch things like bugs, one would probably do the same thing and look away from shame and pity. If you swapped the jars with Poke-Balls, you could have a water/bug type trainer boss (Fuck, I can't unsee this! -Konran)

Darkness on the other hand was still in her casual clothes, with nothing changed except having boots to use in the snow. I already questioned this when we got to the gate back in Axel, but her explanation of 'Cold Endurance Training' made me not want to ask anymore questions.

We would soon chase after our own fairy to try and kill, or capture 'em all, and earn some money to live off of. Kazuma would try and swing his sword and kill one of the fairies, but miss a lot, Aqua on the other hand is catching a lot of them and putting them in the jars, Darkness is chasing after one of them and is missing her swings, nothing wrong about that, and Megumin is chasing after Darkness. I'm still trying to kill at least one of them since my stats on my sword swing is slightly faster but still missing.

"Can I….Just cast an….Explosion….? I don't like chasing….after Darkness" Megumin said as she was panting from exhaustion, since she was the youngest one, it made sense that she'd have the lowest stamina out of all of us.

Kazuma looked towards her and gave her the green light to do so, not wanting to get nuked, I took a couple of steps backs and hid behind a tree.

Megumin would soon chant her spell while waving her staff in the air, the red gem in her staff started to glow and when the spell was ready to be used Megumin would yell, "EXPLOSION!" the blast area was smaller than expected, but the wind still shot away from the explosion and Megumin still plopped onto the snow motionless from all Mana being used. In her explosion it seemed that she got a handful of snow fairies, but still not a lot.

I soon stood away from the tree and walked towards Megumin, and told her "Hey, how's the snow taste?" Megumin would then groan and say with the strength she had at the moment "Don't make me hit you when I recover..." I snickered for a bit, and lifted her and her staff and brought her to the same tree I hid behind and sat her up to get a good view of us, "Thanks" she said.

I would soon walk towards Kazuma and asked, "How much do we have all together? I'm ready to leave when you are." Kazuma would soon be counting both in his head and his hands, and reply "Just about 16, no thanks to you…" I still wasn't able to kill any of the fairies, but I was okay with this since I didn't need much money, I still had a good chunk to live with for another 3-4 weeks, not to mention that I sometimes get paid from the guild for bouncing people.

"Ah It's here!" Aqua exclaimed, what she meant by 'it' was something forming 10 feet away from us, as the wind was getting pulled in that direction forming a figure that was hard to see. Aqua then walked up to us and said, "You guys lived in Japan right? Let me tell you why adventurers don't do these quests in the wintertime. When you were young, you must've heard something similar to this from history and folklore…."

What we saw was in traditional japanese armour, pure white armour with killing intent. It was something that looked like it was from the shogun era of Japanese history. Wielding a long Katana that was thinner than an inch, and way sharper than the most talented blacksmith in both Japan and this fantasy world.

This was Jack Frost, the Master of Snow and Living Symbol of Winter itself, and we were killing his people.

The pressure it gave off could be rivaled with Beldia's, and since we were not prepared for this. We had to escape no matter what.

Because Darkness was the closest to Jack, he swung at her first. She tried to block it, but the sword was easily destroyed with one swing. Jack Frost is way worse than Beldia!

I ran towards Darkness and drew my sword to try and block anymore swings that it would try, Kazuma joined me and raised his short sword up, and soon shouted towards Aqua "What should we do!? Can we take this guy on!?" Aqua shouted back, "Guys listen! Jack Frost is a being who is forgiving! If you apologise quickly, He might let us go!" Aqua would then kneel down on both knees and bow her head. Because we all know Aqua as selfish and arrogant a lot of times, seeing her kneel and bow for this spirit made her point on how serious this was.

"Hurry up and Prostate! I don't want to die from you! Everyone throw your weapons away, hurry up and apologise! Come on!" Aqua soon threw her staff and pride out of the window and dug her head had into the snow. Me and Kazuma would soon do the same since it meant living to fight another day. Darkness on the other hand was still, standing, broken sword in hand. I would say to her "What are you doing, get down and toss your weapon!" Grabbing her shoulder, I soon brought her down to kneel with me, but was struggling against me to get back up.

"As a crusader, I can't kneel! My pride as a Crusader will be tarnished if I do! I can't bow to a monster from fear!" Darkness said as her pride was starting to show through, "You don't have much pride left in our perspectives, and whether or not you kneel it won't matter if you're dead!" Kazuma said as he was starting to help me push Darkness' head into the ground so we wouldn't die.

We soon got her head to the ground where she was now kneeling, "Ugh, stop! I don't want you to forcefully shove my head down! My face is touching the cold...ground….ha...ha...two on one...So Rewarding!" Darkness said, as she was starting to enjoy it, we looked at Jack to see if this was good enough to leave us alone. His hands were nowhere near the blade, and in no form to harm us.

"Kazuma! Tsukiyo! Throw out your weapons! Throw it now!" Aqua shouted towards us, we still had our weapons in our hands since we were preoccupied with getting Darkness to not die. I threw out my weapon lightning fast while Kazuma was scrambling to throw it out.

Jack didn't seem to like this, and soon went into a battle stance with his blade and sheath in his left hand, ready to make a horizontal swipe. I panicked a bit and readied my Demon Arm hoping that my arm wouldn't get cut off.

I soon heard a clink when Jack put his hand on the blade handle, I blocked the right side of my face with my arm when I heard and felt a rush of energy overcome my hand and blocked the Katana from cutting my arm and head off. Of course this hurted like a bitch, but what made me forget the pain in an instant was seeing a horrible sight that would make my heart stop.

I saw Kazuma surprised expression on his face as he had his head chopped clean off of his body. As much as a dick Kazuma was for being the type of person that he was, I didn't want someone as young as him to be severely hurt or damn near death like I was.

Seeing this made me panic, hard. I started to hyperventilate, my heart rate was at an alltime high, and I just witnessed a teammate of mine die right in front of me.

Everything happened so fast, I didn't know what to do. But I wasn't given much of a choice since I blacked out from all the stress and fear that was overcoming me…

It was dark, I couldn't see anything but the blackness of my conscious…

 _All right, My turn to show you how it's done…_

(Reference Vid: https/url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https/watch%3Fv%3DRnMl3OHraX4ved=0ahUKEwiTg4Lny_XbAhWJL3wKHaGUCE8QwqsBCCcwAAusg=AOvVaw12zzPzUdriZ-PT3OZGz9u6)

 _When Tsukiyo blacked out from everything that was going on around him, he seemed to have lost consciousness of his body, where another soul took his place. A soul far more experienced in the art of combat, but far worse than a Demon Boss in terms of his tenacity to fight his enemy to the death if need be._

 _This soul belong to Vergil, the Second Son of Sparda. His precision was second to only his Brother Dante, but in this fantasy world, he could be rivaled to the Demon King Himself._ _Not only would his soul take over, but his pride, Yamato, a Katana used by his father to seal the Hell gate and go on a Demon Killing rampage, would also materialise to take on the Spirit himself._

 _Because Vergil was a spirit himself and because Tsukiyo was still weak, he could not materialise himself to replace Tsukiyo, yet. So his spirit would Linger above him and control him. Yamato in hand, He was determined not to let his prey go. Vergil would take a form similar to what Jack would've been if it had been a corrupted spirit, attached to his left arm was an integrated sheath that had Yamato in it._

 _Darkness who was Beside him was at shock, seeing a companion of hers get beheaded from her selfish actions, and seeing another undergo a shocking form of a Demon transformation at his breaking point. She would ask out of concern "Tsukiyo….are you okay?" Tsukiyo himself could not answer, so Vergil spoke for him, in the distorted voice that Lingered above Tsukiyo, he said "Don't worry about your companion, Let him sleep and let me take control for a while."_

 _The unconscious body of Tsukiyo would then pick up his sword that was thrown aside earlier and readied it for combat. Pointing the Yamato and Red Queen towards the Winter Spirit, Vergil would soon say "Let's have some fun, Shall we?"_

 _Without a second to waste, Vergil rushed at Jack and Swung the Red Queen at him, managing to block the sword easily, Jack would prepare for a counter attack, only to be met with having to soon block Yamato from nearly touching the mask of Jack. Exceeding the Red Queen the level 3, Vergil would now attempt to do a series of combos to knock the Katana out of Jacks hands._ _Which each slice the Red Queen made as it was in Ex. 3, Vergil made up the gap in between each slice with a slice from the opposite direction of the Red Queen using the Yamato._

 _He started up with a combo that would push back the spirit with a flurry of slices that left no breathing room for retaliation (DT Red Queen Combo C 1:11), as soon as that was over the spirit was soon in a constant guard while slowly approaching Vergil._ _Not wanting to let the spirit take the upper hand, Vergil would soon send a constant stream of transparent swords rapidly heading towards Jack (DT Normal Shot, just swords no gunshots 4:13) While Jack was continuously blocking the transparent swords coming at him, Vergil started to walk towards him._

 _The Spirit would slowly back away, not knowing what attacks Vergil will unleash next, Vergil now in a stance that would imitate what Jack did earlier before he chopped off Kazuma's head, and the body of Tsukiyo would be in the same position but mirrored. The summoned swords that was bombarding Jack would stop and as soon as the opportunity arose for him to counter he took it, but to Vergil's calculation, he expected this._

 _With Jack rushing at him at speeds that couldn't be seen with the human eye, Vergil unleashed a devastating combo using both the Yamato and the Red Queen that forced Jack back into a defensive position and make his Katana take all the shots (Showdown 5:52) Without letting Jack go for a shot to attack him, Vergil made one last shot at Jack to cut him down and defeated his opponent (Maximum Bet 5:46) Virgil would concentrate and made an X attack using the Yamato to kill the spirit, but instead of killing him, it shattered the Misty Katana that glowed with frost emitting from it. Seeing as he didn't have his Katana anymore, Jack tried to flee the fight and not get killed by whatever the other spirit possessing the human._

 _Conjuring up a massive snowstorm to hide his exit, Jack would open a portal that lead to wherever the portal lead to and try to escape. Upon entering the portal, it's left foot seemed to have gotten caught on what looks to be the transparent Devil Arm latching on to it. "You won't forget this Devil's Power!" Vergil said as it was grabbing the Spirits leg from a distance._ _Sadly, the spirit was able to break free from the Demon Arm's grip and escape into the portal where it would not be seen again._

 _" **Sigh** , Disappointing..." Vergil spat as his mood for killing the spirit was now spoiled._

 _Walking towards Tsukiyo's companions who were healing the beheaded member, Vergil would soon disappear. With Tsukiyo's body falling to his knees, it wouldn't be long before Tsukiyo would regain consciousness and regain control of his body._

 _Before Vergil Completely disappeared, he said towards the group "It won't be long before your companions wake up. Remember the name Vergil, because I will be back, and I will be back stronger…"_ _As soon as he faded out back into Tsukiyo's arm, it would only be moments before Tsukiyo would wake from his slumber. And when he did, his companions would be there, waiting for him…._

 _...Pathetic…_

I started to open my eyes and before me was my friend, Kazuma, who was laying on the ground. His head was on Aqua lap and seemed to be intact, there was no scar on his neck. But he was unconscious...

What happened?


	14. Aftermath, New Parties and a Clusterfuck

What happened?

I don't remember much, but all I remember was seeing Kazuma's head get cut off and I….don't know what happened after that…

"Kazuma! Get up Kazuma! Please!" Megumin Cried, she repeated saying his name as if it was going to wake him up. It hurt to see her do that since it wasn't going to do much.

Darkness was holding onto Kazuma hand with both her hands, almost as if she was praying. Before I died and came to this world, I was an atheist, didn't really believe in the concept someone bigger and better than us, just accepted reality for what it was: A shitty place, where everyone struggles just to make a living. Seeing her do this was both made me uncomfortable but relieving.

Aqua on the other hand was neutral in this situation, now that I look at her closely, she has both her hands in front of her glowing white, along with Kazuma.

Was she resurrecting him? Is that technically legal for her to do that since Kazuma already died and came here, or is there a loophole?

After another 2-3 minutes of Aqua doing whatever she was doing she seem to stop for a moment and Kazuma started to wake up from his 'Death', did she really revive him? Just like that!?

"Ah! You're finally awake! Don't mind Eris, she's just stubborn, ok?" Aqua said to Kazuma as he looked up to Aqua as he was still in Aqua's lap. As soon as both of the girls looked to Kazuma's now conscious face, they seemed to hug him tightly and happily knowing that their companion hadn't died just yet, even though he already did before.

I'll admit it, I did feel a little emotional when I saw him wake up and know that he didn't die.

What I didn't expect was to see Aqua have a shitstain grin on her face, and because I know this group and their personalities, I knew what might happen next.

"Hey Kazuma, don't get so hung up on being embarrassed. Isn't there something you want to say to us, huh?" Aqua said in a cocky tone, Kazuma looked at her with a deadpan face and said something that confused me "God Change!" I don't know how to respond to this, but Aqua looked pissed and tried to choke Kazuma when he said that, "You ungrateful HikiNEET! Is that how you treat someone when they revive you!? You want me send you back so you can be with that arrogant bitch!? Huh!?" Aqua spat.

Okay, I probably had to stop her before she actually tries to kill him. I stepped in and grabbed both of Aqua's arms and restrained her from attempting actual murder, she struggled for a bit before running out of breath and giving up completely. She says she's a goddess, but has the stamina of a kid.

I would soon let her go, where she would cross her arms and pout from her conversation with Kazuma. Megumin who was now sniffling, asked him "Are you okay? Does it feel weird or in pain anywhere?"

Kazuma patted his body for any pain, does he know that he got behead? If not, then he might have a heart attack knowing about it.

"I guess I'm fine, what happened? How'd I die?" Kazuma asked, Damn he doesn't really know. This'll be interesting to see his reaction.

Aqua with the ability to not read the mood whatsoever, or because of payback for a couple of minutes ago said without any trace of caution, "You got beheaded by Jack. After looking at the cut from your neck and your head, it was really clean! It was really easy to put your head back into place, but you lost a lot of blood though. It sprayed all over the snow and a bit on Darkness! My ability can heal and resurrect you, but I can't restore lost blood. From this point on, no more dangerous jobs, if you get hurt again and bleed, then you're done for! I don't feel like talking to Eris again…"

Looking back on Kazuma it seemed that all colour in his face just vanished in an instant. I'd be doing the same thing If I heard that.

Megumin who was not sniffling anymore also included, "Also Tsukiyo turned into a cool person and drove Jack Frost away from us. It was pretty cool, he was glowing blue and had a spirit of his own on top of him. He said that his name was Vergil, and that he'd come back stronger…What does he mean by that Tsukiyo?"

Hearing this made a chill run up my spine, without even knowing the details of what happened I knew exactly what happened.

Vergil took over when I blacked out and took on Jack Frost himself, and won.

This is bad. Not only is he able to take control if I blackout, he can fight too. I asked Megumin "Did he have a sword with him? A thin lookin one with a white and black grip?" She replied, "Yes he did...Hey! How'd you know that, were you actually awake?" Ignoring her question, I stood up and walked away from the group to think to myself for a minute.

Shit, shit, shit. He has Yamato too. If he comes back stronger with Yamato in hand, there's no telling what he might do. His sense of Justice seems ok, but it's the liabilities around, a.k.a my teammates, he won't have consideration for. If he wants to, he could kill them in an pared to the Jack, if he was able to overpower and make him flee then that already makes him enough of a threat that rivals a Demon Boss, maybe even the Demon King himself.

I then remembered something. I took out my Adventurers card and went to the Abilities tab, and there I saw what confirmed my suspicions:

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Abilities

Sprint Speed - 116% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 38)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

 _*New*_ Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness.

Uses 1 MP every 2 sec. 30 MP per Min.

Current MP: 0/150

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I was slightly reassured when reading the description for my Devil Trigger (DT) knowing that Vergil won't take over every time, but only when I'm unconscious. Still didn't give me the greenlight to go Rambo and use it whenever I get the chance since 5 minutes is my limit.

Hearing footsteps behind me, I look back and see my party staring at me wondering what was going on. Darkness would say to me "Hey Tsukiyo, we're heading back right now. Help me walk Kazuma back to Axel, it's a long journey back." I replied back that I'd be there soon. I put my card back into my pocket, and walked over to where Kazuma was and helped him get in his feet and walked him back to Axel for 2 hours.

On our way back to Axel, Aqua asked me "Hey Tsukiyo, who was that person controlling you? I know it was Demon since it smelled like it, but it was different than the ones around here." I wanted to tell her 2 things; her sense of 'smell' sounded like pure bullshit, and that Vergil is one of the sons of a Demon King in an alternate reality, but couldn't since I Don't have much of an explanation to give them.

"I'll tell you guys someday, not sure when, but I will tell you. Just need some time." I said, I really wasn't sure how to tell them what my arm is other than a Demon Arm. I don't know how it originated from the game, or if it was possessed by someone else first, but all I know is that Vergil resides in it, and as long as I'm alive, so will he.

Aqua then asked another question, "Alright, then tell me this: How are you not harmed by my holy magic? The Demon Boss was almost dead by my magnificent display, yet you are still here all willy nilly like nothing happened, why is that?" Even if Aqua said that like some kind of douche, she did have a point. How come Holy magic doesn't harm me? By the demonic powers that I have and abilities that I use, I am a Demon...or at least I think I am?

At this point, I'm just going to overthink this and make my head explode, so If I ever get the chance to ask Eris, since I asked her to make me a Demon by giving me a Demon arm, I'll ask her if there is some immunity that I don't know of.

We didn't talk much after the 2 hours of going back to Axel, but one thing was for sure: I did not want to bring anymore attention to myself, but sadly, I wasn't given the choice to try…

A couple of days after Kazuma's death and resurrection, we decided to take it easy for a bit, mainly because of Kazuma, but also because their was still quests on the board that were still above our grade. So because of the quests, we mainly stayed in the Tavern for 50% of the time, if we weren't we would be doing minor things like hunting small game, or farming from weaker enemies.

Today would've been one of those slow days where it would take a long time just for the group to calm their shit and not go apeshit over 1-2 small enemies. Megumin raving about her explosions, Aqua being a bitch as usual, Darkness not hitting shit even with weak enemies, and me doing a good majority of the damage and earning a low amount if exp (Experience Points).

Kazuma would be resting back in the Tavern, he'd be either drinking early or looking for a small job to do as he recovered from a good amount of blood loss. Little did we know that this day would be a lot more interesting because of a "small" argument between Kazuma and some other adventurer his age…

"Hey, would like to explain what you said before? I would like to hear what you said a lot more clearly…" Kazuma said as he was suppressing his anger and trying not to start a fight with this kid.

"Let me say this in a way that even You can understand: You're dead weight holding back a team of High Tier members, why? Cause you're the weakest member on there!" The other adventurer said, his other companions with him seem to laugh with him as he said that.

You know now that I think about it, I think I saw him pissing in the alley I was in when trying to "Escape" my hotel and do stupid shit. He was blonde with short but spiky-ish hair, and wore a red shirt with white sleeves, and brown pants.

Kazuma stayed quiet for a moment while glaring at the other guy. Although the other guy doesn't know the battle that is trying to deal with those 3, he didn't have much to say to him or retort at him, so he was at a disadvantage.

"Hey, say something weakest link! Your really dragging around 3 beautiful women around and that thing over there, are you trying to be some kind of main character? You must be living the easy life with those 4 doing all the heavy lifting." As soon as he finished saying what he said, it was my turn to hold in my anger and not beat the living shit out of the guy for calling me a 'thing', like I was some kind of fucking animal.

I walked up to where he was standing and got up close and personal to the douche who was smug for some reason, as soon as I got very close to him his smugness seemed to disappear and have a look of confusion. More toxicity would come out of my mouth just to get back at this guy, "What the fuck did you just call me you little shit? Dare you to say that one more time to my fucking face, go on. Do it."

This guy really reminded me of Motherfucker, so I'm just itching to let loose and teach him some respect.

Seeing how very hostile I got towards him, he seemed to change gears very quickly and tried to take back what he just said, "Oh-uh, I'm sorry...I guess the alcohol got to my head just for a bit, but still! You have to admit that having teammates like those seem pretty blissful, I guess I was envious of how you don't get to suffer as much us regulars…" His tone seemed a little cautious and timid as he said that.

As soon as he said that, Aqua came up to me and said, "Uh Tsukiyo, you don't need to be that mad over a small insult. I may be a goddess, but those insults don't affect me, you don't need to worry…" I really didn't want to hear anymore of her bullshit, "Shut up Aqua, you irrelevant in this conversation." I spat at her as she was trying to bring her ego up, she went back to Darkness and Megumin as she pouted in her booth.

Not wanting to escalade the situation any further, I decided to just walk away from the annoying kid and just forget about him, Kazuma though…

"You say that our lives are blissful? Easy? That we don't suffer as much? What BULLSHIT!" Kazuma snapped at the other adventurer, he seemed confused, but Kazuma continued his tantrum and said "Tell me what pretty ladies to you see here in this Tavern, other than the booth ladies!? Where!? Point me in the direction of the pretty women that you notice! Because I want see as clearly as you do with your glassy eyes!" Kazuma continued as he slowly made his way to the other adventurer.

"Hey tell me, you said you envied me right? You said that right!?" Kazuma was now grabbing the shoulders of the adventurer, "Since you're so envious, how about we switch our teammates for the day! You'll see how much shit we have to put up with!" Kazuma declared by himself without asking any of us. Oh yeah, just decide by yourself, you're the self-proclaimed leader.

The other adventurer looked backwards to his companion and saw some shoulder shrugs and confused faces which I guess was their version of agreeing to Kazuma's deal. "Um, I-I guess we're okay with that, we're just hunting goblins today."

Kazuma would soon let go of the other guys shoulders and walk towards his "new" teammates and introduce himself. The other guy did the same to us. This wasn't the first time that my a group option was decided by one guy, but I do know that this won't be the last.

And with that, We somehow traded teammates from some random beef that Kazuma and this guy, who we now know as Dust, had.

Leaving the town gates at the west entrance, we decided to continue leveling up like we did yesterday. The only difference was the extra teammate, and because of Dust being we had one more person to watch our back, but could end up as a liability.

I took out my card to check up on how much I've been leveling up. Ever since the incident with Beldia and Jack Frost, I was able to get a good amount of exp from them, but because I didn't kill either of them, it was only partial exp. It doesn't help either that a whole day of farming enemies barely makes me level up only once:

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Red Queen:

Damage multiplier - x1.2 (Max. x5.0) Upgrade: 1 point per x0.1 **(1 pt)**

Exceed Bonus - x1.6 (Max 2.0) Increased Every 5 levels by 0.1

Range - 1 meter (Max 5 meters) Upgrade: 1/2 a meter per 5 points

Swing speed - 107% (Max 150%) Upgrade: 1% per 1 point **(2 pts)**

Knockback - x1.2 (Max x2.0) Increases as Red Queen receives upgrades

Demonic Cleanser: When held with the Devil Bringer, impact is increased by x1.5 and damage is increased by x1.5 in exchange for swing speed ( -25%)

Berial's Flames from the Fire Hell: When Red Queen is Exceeded beyond level 1, flames get more deadlier at the cost of 20% chance of inflicting self fire damage on level 2, and 40% when on level 3

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Devil Bringer

(Buster) Strength - 145% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5% **(4 pts)**

Lift Strength - 80 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 7 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet **(1 pt)**

Treasure Detection - Devil arm will glow brightly when near treasures or secret items within 10ft, can only be used when concentrating solely on the arm.

Shield of Credo - The Devil Bringer is now able to hold an enemy and use it as a shield, 40% chance of it working. Enemy can only be lifted if it's within the Lift Strength.

Bael's Cold Grip - When an enemy is being held on as a shield, it will not be able fight back for 5 minutes. Enemies attacking the shield has 25% chance of getting frost damage, and if the shielded enemy is slammed, it will shatter from 100% frost damage.

Unyielding strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Demon Drain: Drain any demonic or evil essence from an enemy and use it against them via a punch. Strength increases depending on how strong an enemy is, x1.0-x2.5 Fixed dmg.

Power of Sparda: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% vitality

25% strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

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Abilities

Sprint Speed - 118% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 43)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness.

Uses 1 MP every 2 sec. 30 MP per Min.

Current MP: 300/300

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Swordsman

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x1.2 (Max 2.0) Upgrade is x0.1 per point

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 40% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 20

MP Usage reduction with swords - 5% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 10% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 17.5% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

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General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Current Level : 18

Strength : 43 **(2 pts)** Status--Calm

Vitality : 1400/1400 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 300

Stamina : 30 **(2 pts)**

Defense : 41 **(4 pts)**

Agility : 32 **(2 pts)**

Luck : 28

Faith : 15

Dexterity : 29 **(1 pts)**

Will : 48

Intelligence : 39

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Looking back at Dust who was following behind us, he seemed to be looking very overconfident about this entire situation. This poor bastard has no idea what fresh hell he's stepped into, and I'll give him no pity when it all comes crashing down.

Walking in an empty plain to get to the forest that has mini mob enemies, Dust asked a question that he probably should've asked in the very beginning, "So, tell me. What abilities do you guys have as a party?" Having the perfect opportunity to show off Megumin flipped her cape sideways and went into full weeb mode saying "If you want to experience the majestic skill known as Explosion honed by a Crimson Demon, I could show you if you want!"

Because Kazuma wasn't here to stop her, I had to take his place and babysit all three of-, no wait, Four of them to make sure they didn't die, "No you will not, save it for something that is worthwhile. We don't need to attract unwanted attention and I don't feel like carrying you the entire day."I said, Dust blowing off the warning that I gave Megumin "Psh, forget him, show me the Explosion!", "WAIT DO-" I tried to say, but without a second to waste, Megumin chanted her spell and let off her only spell of the day on an empty plain to show Dust what she was capable of.

The Explosion was a lot bigger and vibrated the earth a lot more than before, I could only guess that she spent all her points just in that skill alone. After the explosion was over, and now we can actually open our eyes without getting dust or dirt in them, Megumin was on the ground motionless. "WHOA! Did you see that!? That was amazing! Crimson Demon magic feels 20 tiers above regular magic!" Dust said excitedly as he witnessed his first explosion from Megumin.

I walked up to her, squatted to her height, and glared at her for letting off the only spell she could do for one day. She tried to look away, but because she couldn't move much after that she had to look at me straight in the face. A situation like this reminded me of when a parent catches a child doing something that they shouldn't have done, like running with a cup of water and spilling it on hardwood floor. "Are you happy now?" I asked in a disappointed tone, Megumin didn't want to respond and just looked away.

I sighed, knowing Megumin, even if she didn't say it, I Knew that she didn't regret her decision whatsoever. I turned towards Dust who was still in awe from the explosion and told him, "Hey, pick her up and start carrying her. She won't be able to move for the rest of the day." His attitude went from awe to confusion in a matter of seconds before he asked me, "Wait how come? She should be able to walk fine right?" I turned towards him and told him, "Well if you would've let me finish explaining and not egg her on, I would've told you that her spell is a literal glass cannon! A one and done type of spell, can only be used once per day. So thanks for making the day a lot harder than it needed it to be."

After Dust had his mood ruined, he went over to Megumin, picked her up and gave her a piggyback. We continued making our way to the forest area to start farming.

But before we could even find a good spot to farm, a black feline animal appeared before us. It looked like it could be a bigger version of a sabertooth, but has scars all over it body and had only one good left eye.

Dust seemed to have been scared of it because he started to freak out just as hard as Aqua would, "OH-H, N-n-no! Rookie killer! It's the Rookie Killer! We have to run!"

Not being familiar with the name, I asked Dust "Hey, Calm down! What's Rookie killer, and why are you scared of it?" He turned towards me and said, "It's a boss mob that has killed most of the rookie adventurers that aren't careful enough around the forest! It's said to have killed more than 50 rookies in the past 2 winters!"

Damn, so we got caught by a dangerous animal that kills the very weak and inexperienced. Part of me wanted to say that I expected something like this, but couldn't since this was the most normal boss type that appeared in this backwards fantasy world.

Not liking the odds of us surviving by running from a animal that preys on fear with one teammate down, I decided on a plan to try and distract it away from Dust who had Megumin on his back, and Darkness and Aqua who don't have much use in a normal day.

But before I could tell them my plan and let them escape, Darkness being the fucking mad woman she is, headed straight towards the rookie killer and started swinging at it madly, while missing all of her shots. Aqua seemed to be psychic and started running away from rookie killer alone, at least she followed one part of my plan...oh, there goes Dust too, at least he's sort of fast even with Megumin on his back.

Looking back on Darkness 'fighting' with the Rookie killer, all that I could see is her having her armour getting destroyed and her enjoying the pain that comes from each of the felines swipes, slashes, and bites.

 _Sigh_ , just another day in paradise…

Taking the Red Queen off of my back and joining Darkness in her battle, I would have to try and either take it down, even though it sounds impossible, or have it flee from intimidation, which I'll doubt it'll do. Yay, more impossible odds to take on an get screwed over from...


	15. A New Challenger and Misunderstandings

It would've taken a solid 30-40 minutes just to try and get it to back off of us. With the fire that came out of my sword using the exceed function, I made it back off and made him go away. If I was probably not alone and had more experience with combat, I would've took it on.

That was the easy part. The hard part in all of this would be to drag the now unconscious Darkness out of the forest, and find the rest of my party so we can call it a day...even though it was now the afternoon…

Now you might be wondering, 'Hey Tsukiyo, what the hell happened to make a situation like this actually happen?' Well other me inside my brain, it's a long ass story…

First, some jackass decides to be a dick towards Kazuma and me for having "an easy life". Then I get pissed and want to punch him hard enough to sober up the drunk idiot, after that he says he's envious of Kazuma for having beautiful women in our party, even if one them is still a kid. This _T R I G G E R E D_ Kazuma and made him swap party members for the day. Shit hits the fan when Megumin blows her Explosion on an empty plain, and we encounter a lion, panther, sabertooth tiger thing and we get separated. Darkness sucks at Crusading and gets knocked out, I scare away the saber tooth tiger away from us, and I'm now stuck carrying her while trying to find out where the flying fuck they ran off to.

It doesn't help when we're in a forest too, a place where they can be literally anywhere!

As I was continuing to ramble to myself on this shit-uation (Shitty Situation), my complaint was disrupted by the sound of running water towards my right. As I continued to head towards the sound, it starts to get louder and until reached the source of the sound, it was a small lake flowing downstream towards the southwest.

Taking this opportunity to take a break from carrying Darkness and the burden of having shitty teammates, I let her down near a tree close-ish to the lake and decided to refresh myself a bit by washing any grime on my face and take a sip of the lake, if the water was clean.

Looking back at the unconscious Darkness, it looked like her face had some grime and blood from her "battle" with the Sabertooth. Regrettably, because I was a good person, in theory at least, I decided to wash her face for her. Dragging her closer to the lake, I sat down on the rocks that was near the lake, put her head on my lap, cupped a bit of water in my hand and started to wash her face.

There was a small scratch mark the left side of her temple, so I made sure to wash it thoroughly to wash out the blood. Grabbing a small portion of her cape that she had, I ripped off a small chunk of cloth and started to dry off the blood and grime off her face.

I know that I've already said this before, but Darkness was really pretty for someone with a personality like hers. It was too bad that her personality and fetish existed in the first place, if it didn't I'm pretty sure I would've fallen for her at this point.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I started to caress her hair out of he face and looked a little more intently at her, my heart rate was starting to increase as I stared more at her.

Oh no, nononononono, don't do this me. You know what she's capable of, and it's only gonna disappoint you more if you pry further. Don't do this...

"Oh get a room you lovebirds! I don't want to see any of that lovey dovey crap. Unless you're gonna go do _that_ then by all means go for it kid!" Someone said to me, which scared the crap outta me to the point of almost pushing Darkness into the lake.

I stood up quickly and held the Red Queen in my hands, looking around to find out where the voice came from. Then I heard footsteps come up from behind me slowly walking towards me.

I turned around to see who i was and prepared for a battle, but what I saw made me stop in an instant. Felt both nostalgia and uneasiness when I looked at the figure in front of me.

He had brown boots on that went up to his shins, black pants that was in perfect condition, as if it was just bought with a grey leather belt, a black v-neck that looked professionally made without sleeves, black hair that seemed to be a little bit longer than mine, and to top it all of...a red coat that had a demon sword called Rebellion on its back, the DMC4 version too.

Aside from his black hair, he was basically Dante.

"No fucking way…." I said as I was stunned to see another person copy off the same video game that was near and dear to my heart. My grip in the Red Queen loosened as I was in awe, the guy who replicated Dante seemed to be a lot older than me, probably 26 or 27.

"What's wrong kid, cat got your tongue?" He said as he continued to walk towards me, snapping out of the awe that struck me when I saw the guy, I tightened my grip on my sword and started to focus again.

He stopped moving towards me and had a sly grin on his face, he then tilted his head and said "What with the attitude? Thought you'd be happy to see your 'Rival' in the flesh." He said in a tone similar to Dante's, not that arrogant but pretty nonchalant and loose.

"Oh believe me, I'm happy to see the real thing in my own eyes, but the question is, are you a friendly or enemy? That and I want to know if you have the other weapons with you." I asked cautiously, if he had the other weapons then if we were to fight right now, I'd lose in a heartbeat.

"Naw, they only allowed me to have 2 wishes granted. Sound Familiar?" He said, he would soon clear his voice and imitate the voice of an old man, " 'Consider yourself beyond lucky young man, only 5 of countless people have this blessing, yada yada yada' " He then ended his imitation and looked back at me, "So, what'd you do to get your second wish?"

See as he doesn't mean any harm, yet, I got out of my fighting stance and answered him truthfully, "I spent most of my life working and helping out my mom pay her bills with my Brother. It started when I was 15 and able to work, and ended when I died about a month ago. How about you?"

It looked like he pondered the question in his head for a while before answering my question, "To get my second wish, I killed myself from not wanting to live in that shitty place called earth. My parents were deadbeats, worked bad jobs just to dope up for a day, and never gave a single shit about their only son who they soon abandoned. Life was just too cruel for a 20 year old like me, and I was somehow given a second chance. That was almost 6 years ago, best damn decision of my life!" He said in a grin. Not a trace of hurt, regret, or pain came out of his mouth, it looked like his second chance at life was a fresh start.

He then started to stretch his arms and crack his neck as he was getting ready for something intense. "Alright, that's enough bonding between men, how about we start the show…" As he said that, he took off the Rebellion off of his back and rested it on his shoulder with ease. "Because we know each others moveset, this almost reminds me of a 1v1 match. How about we place a little bet to make things interesting...Who ever wins the battle takes the hand of that fine young woman behind you. What do you say?"

As soon as I heard his deal, I smirked "Sure why not, she's a real handful when it comes to doing anything monster related, just don't say I didn't warn you."

"Alright! That's some enthusiasm that I like to see! But first…." As soon as he said that, black portals started to well up from the ground, and emitted an orange and brown aura. What came out of the portal would've scarred me if I was still a beginner adventurer, even though I sort of am I guess?, but because I saw a lot of horrifying stuff here, I've already been desensitized.

A rusty blade came out from multiple portals, attached to what can only describe the monster was tattered clothes, poorly stitched together with peglegs on both feet sometimes, and disproportionate button eyes. It was the Scarecrow(1).

"...Let's see to it that our deal doesn't have any unwanted guests. I would hate to have our first battle ruined by something ugly as hell." The guy would soon emit a faint red Aura, I can only assume that he has control of Dante's styles as well, with the exclusion of gunslinger obviously.

We soon got surrounded by a dozen Scarecrows, both arm and leg blade variants. "This party's getting crazy, let's rock!" The guy said, I guess I'll call him makeshift Dante for now (MD).

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(Dante moveset: https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DXmXlEigpWUved=2ahUKEwjSj7LQoOTcAhUXHjQIHZcGBmoQuAIwAHoECAMQAgusg=AOvVaw30iLzKFDEWYQWSjwFwSImr Makeshift Dante perspective in Italic Text)

(Nero Moveset: https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DRnMl3OHraX4ved=0ahUKEwiTg4Lny_XbAhWJL3wKHaGUCE8QwqsBCCcwAAusg=AOvVaw12zzPzUdriZ-PT3OZGz9u6 Tsukiyo perspective in Standard Text)

\--

To start off the battle, the Scarecrows that surrounded us leaped in the air to catch us off guard, both us would dodge out the way and watch them either hit the ground or hit each other. I guess their brain power was at an all time low. Me and MD would be separated with 4 Scarecrows heading towards me and 4 towards MD.

On my side I Exceeded my sword to level 1 and rushed at them to slash horizontally knocking all of them back (Ex. Streak). Before one of them could get back up I used my Devil Bringer to snatch one closer to me and slam him multiple times in the ground before dragging my sword on the ground and slashing upwards with the exceed function still in use (Ex. High Roller Vers 2), I would be in the air when I did this and the Scarecrow that took the hit seemed to have imploded within itself and let put a wheeze that sounded tired. One down, three to go.

 _Oh boy, 4 shitheads all for me, Must be my birthday. Well, it doesn't matter, Gilgamesh, Pandora, and Lucifer or not, I'm still gonna kick their asses. I started to squat in the ground cause my heels were starting to get tired. As I squatted in front of them one of the ugly fucks with the fucked up leg tried to go for back flip and aim its rusty blade at me. Because it was slow as hell, I dodged it easily and landed on my side lying down with my left hand on my left cheek, should I go all out or no? Fuck it, why not! I jumped up from lying down getting hyped to take down all of them. I guess I'll go ranged and wither down a couple of them before going in headfirst._ _Holding on to Rebellion with a tight grip and a lot of concentration, the blade started to glow a dark red with small black static surrounding it, then when the time was right I chucked it at the middle of the 4 fucks who were in front of me horizontally, if it was a normal sword it would've gotten stuck or bounce off. But because I have the op as hell Rebellion, it just spun around in a circle dragging in 1 of them on each side getting sucked into the vortex (Round Trip 0:35.) Seeing that I'd done enough rape from afar, I flicked my fingers back towards me to have the sword return to me, as soon as it got to my hands I lunged towards the second to the left of the pack and put in a lot of punch where the fucker exploded (Stinger 0:24)._

Since I was still in the air and took too much time to take out one Scarecrow, the rest of them managed to get back up and know where I was. Using this opportunity to have the high ground, I used snatch again to bring one Scarecrow in the air with me. Since this was a Leg blade variant, I had to be more cautious since it was more agile than a regular Arm blade version. To make sure it wouldn't get any chance to retaliate against me from getting drug into the air, I used an air combo that used to diagonal slashes, one that went from bottom right to top left and bottom left to top right that would make an X, after that I'd grab the Red Queen with both hand ands make a 360 spin slash that ended with a heavy downwards slash (Roulette Split). When I slashed downwards I managed to hit another Scarecrow that was under the the one that I was wombo comboing. The one that got wombo comboed started to wheeze just like the last one did and deflate entirely while the evil essence just drained out and go into the earth below me.

 _To the left of me was a stunned guy who was closer to my Lunge than the one on my right, taking this opportunity to punish, it'd be the first one to take a devastating combo. I started off with a diagonal slash going from top right to bottom left, taking a fraction of a second to adjust both my hands and feet, I grabbed the sword with my right hand and swung it to the right of me and used my left hand to grab it and swing around back to my right and back to my left making the sword do 2 360's, going in a speed way faster than the human eye can see I did multiple lunges at it, almost a trillion if I want to over exaggerate it, and ended it with a lunge (Rebellion Combo B)_

Since one of the Scarecrows was still on the ground from my slash, I would take this chance to give it hell and just constantly bombard it with pain and downwards slashes. To start it off I would do a simple downwards slash to keep it on the ground, after that, I'd do what I said I would do and bombard it with downwards slashes that seemed a little bit too much for one demon, but didn't care. I slammed my blade down on the demon, once, twice, thrice, ok well 11 times honestly, it felt fun to do that to it, and I ended the demon off with a stab in the middle of it's deformed body and slashed outwards to have the top part of its body in half while the evil essence drained out (Red Queen Combo B).

 _I looked behind me to the and walked towards the 2 demons who were now straight ahead of me, seeing the confidence on my face, they decided to charge at my both at the same time, bad move there compadre. Switching up the hold on my blade from forwards to backwards, my blade started to glow the same dark red from before but started to pulsate, seeing as I charged my blade enough, I made some backhand slashes towards the demons where 3 waves of dark energy came towards the enemy, all of them being diagonal, 2 from top left to bottom right, and one from bottom left to top right (Overdrive 6:22.) Both of them would fly into the air, and I would punish them even further by spinning my blade in a circle horizontally until they either get split in half or explode (Shredder 6:00.) One more to go._

There was one more demon left, and for some reason it was stomping its...peglegs rapidly in the ground and imitating laughter. Guess it didn't care that it's friends got brutally murdered in front if it.

I would use snatch for the third time, grabbed the Scarecrow, and used my Shield ability. A few seconds would pass before the demon would just squirm on my transparent version of my arm before I started to head towards MD for the finishing blow. He noticed me walking over and asked, "What, you gonna take it home and make it your pet? Name him paco?" I Laughed sarcastically while giving him the middle finger, "You wanna do the honors or not?" I asked him, his sword was plunged to the ground as he was leaning on it for support, he would soon dug it out and say "Make sure to hold it still, it'd be a shame if I accidentally cut your head off before our fight"

 _This kid isn't as bad as I thought…_

MD would start his combo with a diagonal slash similar to what I would do, and then do the same diagonal slash twice, one going from top right to bottom right, and bottom left to top right. He'd soon spin his sword around him twice and go into a lunge session before slashing diagonally to the bottom right, doing an X slash, finishing the scarecrow while holding his sword like a bat where he swung with force like an actual bat slicing the scarecrow in half in the stomach, if it had one (Dance Macabre 6:26.)

The initial fight was over, I was pretty tired from having to do a lot of actions, and MD is just there without a bead of sweat on his head, he looked towards me and asked "What, you winded from a small workout like that? You're disappointing me here kid, how's our battle gonna be great if your out of breathe from 8 minutes of fighting? I might have to kick your ass to teach you a lesson!" He said in a mocking tone, "Bite me..." I replied back as I was breathing in air to cool down my body.

Before we could start our battle, I asked him a question, "How come they're here? The Demons" He looked at me and scratched the back of his head before replying "They come from me at the same time during the day. Whether it be Scarecrows, Gladius', Cutlass', or Blitz they all come from me. I guess this is compensation for giving me Demonic powers. How about you? What setback was forced on you?" MD asked me.

I told him that Vergil was living inside the Demon arm that was given to me and he just seemed to laugh it off "Hahahahaha! Oh man did you get the short end of the stick getting a stuck up like him trapped there. Sucks to be you, but you've played the past games to know why he acts like that right?" I looked at him sheepishly and replied, "Nope, just 4 since I only had that game..."

His casual face turned into a emotionless one when I said that, he looked disappointed. "Sigh, man did you miss out in a lot. Ok, let me explain the entire storyline and lore short and easy enough to understand. Listen close..."

I would be listening to him for a good 20 minutes understanding the entire lore of Devil May Cry and all the characters that played a role in the story both major and minor.

"...and that's how 4 comes into the storyline even though the timeline is sort of out of whack. Everything good?" MD said as he was panting over a long explanation of lore. I nodded and understood about 90% of what he said.

"Great...now you got me tired from explaining the storyline….now I'm REALLY gonna kick your ass..." MD said, I asked him one last question, "One more question…" "oh come the fuck on, what now?" He said, I asked him my last question out of the 30 I asked in his explanation "What's your name?" He just looked at me and smiled, "My name is Kosuke, your Tsukiyo right? Kinda ironic dontcha think?(2)"

I smiled when he said that, "Yeah, it really is." Kosuke would soon stretch his arms and head towards the forest, Confused I asked him "Where you going? What about our match?" He replied, "My moods been spoiled, we'll do it another time. See ya." He started to disappear into the forest as he said that, but before completely disappearing he said something that made me question who I really was, "By the way, the god or goddess that gave you that arm...does getting an addition like that really make you a Demon?" He said as he left the question linger in my head as I thought about it.

Does getting Demon-like abilities really make someone a Demon? Are they still Human, or are they considered a Hybrid? I mean based off Kosuke's explanation of the DMC story, Dante's mother was human and his father was Demon, is he still a demon or…

I would ramble to myself about this situation for a while before snapping myself out if it and getting myself back on track. It was already sunset so I guess I rambled a lot longer than I thought I did. I looked back to where Darkness was and she was still unconscious, that sabertooth really did some damage to her if she still wasn't up. Worst case scenario is that she actually died and I just hauled a dead body with me for hours…

Without wasting a moment, I walked quickly towards Darkness and put both my fingers on her neck to check her pulse, thankfully it was still beating in a steady pace…

NO! ' Thankfully it was still beating in a steady pace…'!? Why am I having the feels for someone like her!?

I would bash my head into the ground a lot seeing if it would make it normal again before stopping because of the excessive amount of pain surging through my head.

Ok calm down, this is only stage one...she doesn't know my feelings yet and neither do I, so I'm still in the green. Just gotta carry her back to the Guild and make sure she doesn't die here. I would sheathe the Red Queen on my back before carrying Darkness bridal style.

….was her face always this close or is it just me….Fuck….

This would've been a long 2 hours to get back into town. Fuck Aqua, Dust, and Megumin, I'm just going back…

I started to walk towards the direction of town as Darkness' steady breathing gently hit my neck. It would take everything from me not to drop her and make her wake up, I wasn't sure if that would make her unconsciousness worse or not.

Trying to distract myself from the gentle breathing hitting my neck, I decided to sing a song to take my mind off of the breathing. I've heard this song on the internet and really like the instrumentals since it was interesting and different. The lyrics on the other hand after finding the Japanese translation made me fell in love with the song, It wouldn't be long for me to find out who sang this song and see if it was part of album.

For the most part I would just hum out the melody since it was really good, the lyrics would instantly form in my head since I've listened to it enough times to know the lyrics 100% start to finish (3).

 _I've got an aching head_

 _Echoes and buzzing noises_

 _I know the words we said_

 _But wish I could've turned our voices down_

 _This is not black and white_

 _Only organized confusion_

 _I'm just trying to get it right_

 _And in spite, of all I should've done_

 _I was not mad at you_

 _I was not trying to tear you down_

 _The words that I could've used_

 _I was too scared to say out loud_

 _If I cannot break your fall_

 _I'll pick you up right off the ground_

 _If you felt invisible, I won't let you feel that now_

 _Invisible, Invisible_

 _Invisible, Invisible~_

 _You didn't get your way_

 _And it's an empty feeling_

 _You've got a lot to say_

 _And you just want to know you're being hurt_

 _But this is not black and white_

 _There are no clear solutions_

 _I'm just trying to get it right_

 _And in spite, of all I should've done_

 _I was not mad at you_

 _I was not trying to tear you down_

 _The words that I could've used_

 _I was too scared to say out loud_

 _If I cannot break your fall_

 _I'll pick you up right off the ground_

 _If you felt invisible, I won't let you feel that now_

 _Invisible, Invisible_

 _Invisible, Invisible~_

 _This is not black and white_

 _There are no clear solutions_

 _I'm just trying to get it right_

 _And in spite, of all I should've done_

 _I was not mad at you_

 _I was not trying to tear you down_

 _The words that I could've used_

 _I was too scared to say out loud_

 _If I cannot break your fall_

 _I'll pick you up right off the ground_

 _If you felt invisible, I won't let you feel that now_

 _Invisible, Invisible_

 _Invisible, Invisible~_

 _Invisible, Invisible_

 _Invisible, Invisible~_

For some reason the breathing that was on my neck was now gone, fearing that Darkness had actually died made my heart stop for a moment. I looked to see where Darkness' head was, but instead of a dead body that I thought I saw, it was a now awakened Darkness that was looking at me both intently and probably embarrassed from being carried this way. "That's a nice song..." she said as she looked away blushing madly, It just hit me that because I already knew the lyrics of the song by heart, I probably sang the lyrics unconsciously and have her hear me sing it.

I was now blushing madly and breathed in deeply, "We don't discuss with the rest of the group, ok?" I said in a low tone, Darkness just said, "Ok...", "I'm gonna drop you now…"I said, Darkness seemed surprised by those words "Wait wha-Ow!" she couldn't finish her sentence because I just dropped her flat on her back without looking back to see if she was alright, I just walked quickly to the town hoping that I'd be able to drink my embarrassment away. Darkness followed me after she got up from the ground and was able to walk normally while following me back to town.

 _Sheesh, those two just need to get together already. It's just painful to see the obvious happen to someone street and book smart, but not heart smart..._

(Authors note: Was gonna make this 4 chapters, but Monster Hunter World came out on PC...that's my only excuse, back to weekly uploads of 2 chapters)

Reference:

1 - https//search?client=tablet-android-lenovoei=n4BuW7PBBfLQ9AOwwJYoq=dmc4scarecrowoq=dmc4scgs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.1.0.0l2j0i22i30l3.5031484.5033478..5034638...0.0..0.124.799.0j7...0...1...3..41j0i131j0i131i155j46i131j0i67.655XXyJc_Uc#imgrc=DcTPu2MgMV6RAM:

2 - The Name ' Tsukiyo ' is wrote with the meanings of Moonlit Night. ' Kosuke ' is wrote with the Meanings of Rising Sun.

3 - Linkin Park - Invisible, One More Light Album.


	16. Awkward Silence and Rookie Killer

I was still walking forwards not looking back on Darkness who was following me still. Part of me wanted to say to stop following me, but sadly this was the fastest way back to town. Goddammit, why. Why did she have to hear me sing that song!? I know that the song wasn't meant for her, but the way I was carrying her made it feel like it.

 _Brain: But what feels were there to make it feel like it!?_

Stop contradicting me brain, you're not helping!

 _Brain: Well fuck you too!_

As I was fighting the separate consciousness that was in my brain, Darkness who was witnessing my "Mental Breakdown", asked "Hey, where are the others? Are they back at town already?" At this point they could be in Bufu fucking Egypt and I couldn't care less, "Don't know. At this point I don't want to know where, I'm just heading back." The footsteps that were following me stopped and went the opposite direction, I stopped and said to her without looking back "You do know that there's a chance that they might be dead or at the Tavern, are you sure you want to go out with the Rookie Killer still nearby?" The footsteps that was going the opposite direction didn't stop as I asked the question.

I guess she already made up her mind then.

Sigh, I turned around and walked towards Darkness who was now trying to look for the lost teammates who abandoned us at the sight of Rookie Killer. As much as I don't like some of the teammates that this party has, I didn't want their blood on my hands.

We searched the forest for a good 2-3 hours with no trace of an annoying "goddess" as she claims to be, the terrorist loli grill, and the asshat who screwed himself over by picking on Kazuma. It would be just about dark out when we still continued the search, I took multiple tree branches and flammable leaves to tie together to make a makeshift torch and lit it with the fire from my Sword. I wasn't sure if those 3 would still be out here at this point, "We should get back to town, even if we did get get separated they know the way back. We need to head back before big game show up, we can't handle them the way we are right now." I said to Darkness, she seemed hesitant to go back since she was probably worried, grabbing her shoulder I told her "Look, I don't want to be negative when I don't need to be but trust me, we're not going to get anywhere if we keep searching for the next couple of hours." She replied a bit dejected when I said that, "Alright, Let's go back to Axel" it must be hard having to swallow her pride as a Crusader to leave the forest that has a chance of still having their friends there.

We started to head back to Axel as we couldn't find our teammates that got separated from us in the morning. The forest was pitch black as we headed back, the torch that I held out in my right hand was burning brightly against the night, but was slowly getting dimmer as time went on.

Darkness who was following close behind me, asked a question unrelated to the search that we just finished, "I'm sorry if I'm prying a bit much but, what was that song that you sung earlier? I haven't heard something so gentle come from you." Ignoring the question she just asked, I told her "I told you to forget that, it didn't happen, and you won't tell that to the rest of the guys."

She would continued to ask me about the song that I sung earlier until I gave in, "Alright, fine. I'll tell you. The song that I sung was a song that wasn't much familiar in my native homeland. Of course there was a community around the creators of the song, but compared to the entire population, it was pretty small. I guess the reason why it sounded gentle was because the song itself was a gentle tone, of course the message behind it was strong, but it didn't need much context to be understood since it was song that could connect with people. I'd be nice to feel like it could connect to me, but sadly that's not the case."

When I was still young and hung up on my dad leaving, I didn't have much of a healthy outlet to release my negative feelings. Fighting would get me in trouble, doing drugs would just kill me at some point, and I sort of lost touch with my friends that I'd hang out with.

Music and videogames were the only types of release that I could call normal. Video Games would let me escape the pain that I kept hidden by "being" someone else, and music would either keep my emotions in check or just mute them all together.

Back when my dad still lived with me and my mom, he bought me and my brother the Original Playstation with just a handful of games that came with the console itself. Me and my brother loved it to death, we'd take turns playing the games we had, it didn't matter who was playing, we just loved the games in general, at rare times my dad would come in to either watch or play with us. By the time he left, I didn't even want to look at it since it reminded me of him when he was gone.

When I was 10, I told my mother to sell the Playstation that our father bought us. Even though she didn't like us bring up our father, she didn't want us to sell something that was the only major thing he gave to us, but because both of us agreed to sell it to help pay for the bills that she had to pay on her own, she took the console and all the games with it and sold for enough money to be able to buy a normal amount of groceries.

She would repay me and my brother 3 years later when she bought us the Playstation 3 with Devil May Cry 4 Bundled with it, along with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

When we played Devil May Cry 4 for the first time, we had no idea what the game was about or who the characters were. We just loved the action that game had with it; going in guns blazing, swords slashing at insane speeds and seeing stuff that left in you awe when you saw it for the first time.

Of course, it wouldn't be long before we realised the game was rated M for mature. The swearing felt mature but mainly was normal, but other aspects of the game made it uncomfortable for pre-teens our age…

 _….cough, cough, cough-_ Gloria _-cough, cough, cough-_ Echidna _-cough, cough, cough,_ -Lady and Trish- _cough, cough, cough…_

...But aside from the rated M portions of the game, it was still fun and we still loved it. It was my way out from being sad all the time, and whenever I was feeling sad or not wanting to do anything, I'd play the Bloody Palace in the game as Nero and play until I either died, which was 100% percent of the time, or beat all levels.

Music came in when I was 14. I'd got my first phone which was an old flip phone that my mother used to have, while my brother had bought a new phone with the money he had from his job.

Although the phone was sort of old, it still had internet capabilities and good storage. Of course I didn't have much friends after I became moody and shrugged them off, so photos were rare and phone calls were even rarer unless they were either from my mom, brother, or random phone bots.

To make up for my loneliness and boredom, I would have to use data or wifi to listen to music. I listened to a lot of genres, some I loved to death, and some I won't listen to even if you bribe me.

Since I was young and didn't have much money, any song that I really liked, I would have to download them through illegal means. (Don't ask me how, just know that it's pretty easy -Konran)

Of course, there was a limit to how much music I could put in my phone since storage was decent, but not a lot. By the time my brother bought a new phone, his old one was given to me and my storage was expanded. Because base storage wasn't enough for my interests, I would have to buy multiple 8GB microSD card when one was full of music. At one point I'd soon reorganize all the SD cards that I had and labeled them with the types of genres they were and they'd last for about 10-11 hours per card, but that's minor detail…

The point is, Music and Videogames were the only thing keeping my emotions in check in dire times and in times for comfort. Because I was obsessed with them, I went for a career path related to them. Sadly videogames was a no-go since I didn't have the creativity to make, create, draw, or design them. Music was a better choice since I learned a lot different genres both in Japan and some from Western countries, it even reached a point where I was able to perform a couple of them both on piano and guitar.

The one that I sung when I thought Darkness was still unconscious was from a western band. I wasn't able to understand them in the beginning, but it was nothing good ol' google translate couldn't handle! But when it did fail, I had to look up the translated lyrics by going through multiple sites to try and find them, but it was worth it most of the times when I did find the lyrics since it was completely different from what I've heard in Japan.

In just a couple of months, I would only listen to western music and some japanese music that peaked my interests. Whether it was a pretty good rock song that made me fully wake up, a song that tugged at my heartstrings, or a rap/hip hop beat that makes my head move with it, It would've been in my SD cards since using Youtube and other music apps drained too much battery and used too much data.

As I was reminiscing about my time when I was younger, I seemed to ignore Darkness' question that she asked, now that I was focused and brought back into shitty reality, she asked again "How come? How come it's not the case for you in that song?" I answered in a normal tone "Because compared to most people, I don't have that someone they should've paid more attention to since I barely made any effort to stand out as a human being…"

I tried my best to conceal my sadness that I held back.

Back when I was in my first and second year of high school, I didn't make much friends and because of that, people usually ignored me. I couldn't blame them, If I was normal like them I probably would've done the same, but because I was too focused on trying to help my mom and the bills I never really paid any attention to…

Oh...I guess the song does connect to me somehow...but back to what I was saying before, I barely made an effort to stand out as a human. I became a corporate slave too early, it costed me my humanity and replaced it with just an emotionless machine. I guess I used music too much to the point where my emotions were used to being pushed down, and didn't bother wanting to get back up.

"Does that answer your question?" I asked to Darkness, she seem to have sadness on her face…

Don't worry, I pity myself too…

It would be another 8 minutes before she spoke up breaking the awkward silence between us, "Do you think you can sing another song to stop this silence?" It wouldn't take long for me to say no, and I did just that.

"Why not? If you sing it might make this trip back a little bit more bearable. And if those three might still be here, then they'll hear you and we can all head back to town together!" Darkness said happily, mocking her happiness I replied, "Oh gee, now that you said that, I REALLY don't want to" dropping the tone at the last three words.

"Didn't you want to stand out more and be more human?" Darkness said trying to tie her own logic into my words, nice try "This is an exception. It's late at night, and I'm tired. Try again tomorrow...Well, actually in the morning, it might be midnight at this point…"...But you're still gonna get the same answer…

She seemed to have given up at this point and stopped asking me, as we continued to walk in the pitch black forest.

The Awkward silence returned and it came with a vengeance. All the background noises that a forest would usually have, just disappeared and now the silence was deafening…

It would only be 5 minutes before I cracked under the pressure and started hum out a tune just to get some noise going on. Anymore silence and I pretty sure I would've chopped down a tree just to see if made any noise since no one else was around.

Although I couldn't see it, I could tell...she had a pretty smug face on right now from the silence…

Because the song that I was humming was really good in term of its intensity, I started to sing along to the lyrics that formed in my head. Me and my goddam music obsession..."You also will forget this, got it…" I said, Darkness refused "Don't wanna"

Hmmm, I wonder if I can Devil Slam her hard enough knock her out again...

It wouldn't be long before I started to sing the song with more volume and intensity then the sang song I sung (1):

 _Chosen~_

 _Things are chosen for you_

 _Setting~_

 _Stones are thrown at you_

 _Questions~_

 _Everything is outside!_

 _Settings~_

 _Sunset station petting shadows_

 _Nomad! Never home!_

 _No matter where you go!_

 _Cut down, like they cut you!_

 _No matter what you do!_

 _Messes~_

 _Wander through the ages_

 _Faces~_

 _Hidden from the da~y!_

 _Shiny~_

 _Levels under tou~ch you~!_

 _Dreams are like water to the fires of nightmare lives!_

 _Nomad! Never home!_

 _No matter where you go!_

 _Push them like they push you!_

 _No matter what you do!_

 _(very long guitar solo)_

 _Nomad! Never home!_

 _No matter where you go!_

By the time I was done, I didn't care what Darkness thought of my singing. That song was too good to not be sung, but in my mind library of songs, it wasn't near the #1 spot. Only those near the #1 were the ones I could play on either the guitar or piano.

Looking back to where Darkness was, she seemed very surprised from the song I sang. I wasn't surprised, in this medieval like world, I think folk dance, professional piano, lutes, and guitars were the only music, so Rock wasn't created yet.

"What kind of genre of music is that? I've never heard anything like it. Where do you hear these songs?" She seemed confused from the song that I sung, of course the tempo is much faster than anything here and it doesn't have the fantasy like element where it talks about...well, anything considered musically normal in this world. As I continued to walk towards town I said to her, "I don't blame you on your confusion. But, still...it's shame that you haven't heard music like this, seriously…" I said as I shook my head in disbelief, ok, ego might've gone to my head for a moment, but this a valid excuse to have it go to your head.

To snap me out of this ego trap that I set myself up with, a scream was heard from some direction. I wanted to ignore it and just head back into town, but sadly it was too familiar to try and play it off like it was just the wind or a monkey's mating call...but...

"HEELP! TSUKIYO! DARKNESS! ANYONE HELP! PLEASE!" Aqua called out from the darkness around the both of us. "Aqua!? Is that you!? Keep calling out, me and Tsukiyo will come there to help!" Darkness shouted back to the monkey.

ugh, I really was hoping there were back at town waiting, I just want to get to bed at this point...

Darkness trying to be the good person she is, even though morally she is nowhere near that, starts to head towards the screaming monkey that was calling for our attention, I followed behind her hoping that it was something weak enough for us to scare away, numbers didn't matter…

...but my disappointment increases when I saw a familiar sabertooth trying to climb up a large tree with a monkey (Aqua), a still motionless Megumin, and a hyperventilating Dust.

As soon as the Rookie Killer heard us, it turned around and it roared at us, pretty soon it wouldn't waste time to charge straight at me for scaring it away earlier.

As it went straight for me and pounced me, I had to use my Devil Arm to keep its mouth open and not closed so it wouldn't bite my head off and would also use its claws to scratch my arm constantly.

One of it's paws scratched the top of my head and blinded my right eye, this was a pretty bad shit-uation that I was in. Thankfully 2 things happened in a short amount of time; My pain got numbed and I was able to push it back a bit, and Darkness was able to tackle it and push it off me.

My right eye was still blinded, but at least I wasn't pinned down and on the defense.

After recovering getting tackled, Rookie killer roared at us again and tried to rush us again. The speed of it wasn't as fast as Beldia, but was still out of our league in terms of taking it down.

Wanting to time this perfectly, I would try to grab it and slam its head on the ground as hard as I could. Maybe it would crack its skull, maybe disorientate it...No, that won't work...I had to do something before it could rush me again.

As the sabertooth was rushing towards me, I changed plans and waited for its head to be just about 3 feet in front of me, would try and grab its head by doing an overhead punch with the larger transparent arm that came from my arm, to the ground and hold it down long enough for me to be able to stab its head.

As I held it down, It was struggling hard to get its head out of my hold, swiping its claws violently left and right hoping to hit the person that pinned it down.

As I tried to get closer to its head, the swipes became more violent and frequent to the point where it was almost impossible for me to get near it.

Soon it would break out of my grip and pounce me again, this time taking a bite of my left shoulder. But it wouldn't get a free shot from me since I managed to swing my sword up high enough where it stabbed itself in its left side, where I could assume it was its hip.

Letting out a shriek of pain, the sabertooth got off from gnawing on my shoulder and roared at us one more time before running into the forest limping its way away from us.

As soon as it left, I started to feel the pain that was being numbed and the bleeding that was happening started to increase as I tried to put as much pressure as I could to stop the bleeding to some extent. I let out a painful shriek from the pain that was flowing through me, this sucked. A lot...

See how much I was bleeding out from the sabertooth, both Darkness and Aqua came up to me to stop the bleeding and heal me. Dust and Megumin would soon join me as they got off from the tree.

I started to feel a bit dizzy as Aqua was healing me, but because I was losing a lot of blood, I guess this was sort of normal? I'm not sure, I've never had a near death experience this bad before...

Part of me wanted to pass out and not deal with the pain anymore, but I wasn't sure what Vergil might do if he took control again. Trying to fight the fatigue that was plaguing my consciousness, it wouldn't take long before passing out again.

Oh no, no no no! Not Yet! Come on wake up! I can't let him take control again! Not...this…...time…..

My vision was getting darker and my strength was weakening very fast, and before I knew it, my vision went out and I stopped moving for a moment.

 _Tsukiyo would once again pass out, not from extreme emotional overdosage, but from blood loss._ _When this happened, his companions started to panic. Dust, the newcomer of the group would ask "Hey, he's going to be alright, right? You're the high tier archpriest your magic should be healing him, why isn't he waking up!?" as he panicked._

 _The healer of the group, Aqua, had a calm look compared to Dust, not only was she focusing, but she was used to this type of behavior of people freaking out before her._ _"Hey! Shut up for one moment! Panicking won't do any good, he's just unconscious from the blood loss." Aqua shouted at him as he was making the mood worse than what it was by panicking._

 _Darkness, who was applying pressure on Tsukiyo wound pressed ber palms down on the wound a little bit harder than usual, she was tense. Noticing this, Aqua asked, "Hey, you seem tense, don't worry he'll live as long as I'm around." hearing this from Aqua, she seemed to have calmed down a bit, but was still tense._

 _Aqua stopped healing, removing Darkness' hands from Tsukiyo's shoulder, it seemed that the wound was completely healed for the most part, but all of the blood that was lost from the Rookie Killer was going to stay out._ _Aqua wasn't sure how long he'll be out since it seemed just short of what Kazuma had when he got beheaded._

 _Not wanting to over complicate things, Aqua decided to just to bring Tsukiyo to his hotel and leave him there to recover._ _Taking both sides of Tsukiyo's shoulder, Dust and Darkness would have to drag him back to Axel while Aqua would carry Megumin. It was a journey back that took 2 hours._

Waking up from being unconscious again, I look around to see where I was. It was the hotel that I lived in, the only difference from a normal morning that I usually had was the pain that lingered from my shoulder and the fact that it was nighttime. Was this the same day, or is this another day?

I tried to get up from my bed only to be met with a lot of weakness as I struggled to get up from bed. This wouldn't be so strange it this was a weekend back in Japan, but since I was at a fantasy world were I almost died multiple times, I guess this was...normal?

Hold on that's not right, but then again so is this world and some of its people.

Not wanting to remind myself of how shit this world was, even though I was given a constant reminder each day, I decided to try and stand up to see If I was strong enough to go to the bathroom, if I couldn't do that then I was living in hell.

I would continue to try and sit upright to the point where I was sweating. Next to my bed was my Sword, I could use that as a cane for the moment….

 _You sure you want to get up from losing a good amount of blood?_

I froze as I heard Vergil's voice from inside my head, I wasn't asleep this time either.

How much blood did I lose?

 _Enough to make you weaker than that perverted brat, Don't bother getting up._

So now you can talk to me without it being in a dream, huh?

 _I get stronger just as you get stronger. We're connected remember?_

Right...I layed back in bed, forgetting all the efforts made trying to get up.

 _Seriously, you're a magnet for shitty situations. First the Samurai, then a wild animal...I'm amazed on how you lived past those…_

Yup, so am I. So who's been here the past day?

 _You're companions and woman with the revealing top shirt._

Alright, I guess that's normal…

 _Look, use the Trigger when you need it. There no point of me taking over this world or harming your companions, they're not worth my time._

I guess he can read my thoughts too then…

 _I'm part of you body, of course I can._

Internally I still couldn't trust him fully, but it's like he said, He's part of me, and I'm part of him. I should at least put more faith in him for now…

As I was still in my bed talking to Vergil, the Door opened and revealed my teammates peeking I to see if I woken up yet. When they saw me awake, they came barging in to the left side of my bed.

"Hey, you're awake from almost dying! Again…" Kazuma said, I feel like this is gonna be a trend for me at some point…

Megumin and Darkness had smiles on seeing that I alive and sort of ok for the moment. Aqua looked indifferent, maybe because I was considered a demon in her eyes, but I could tell she was glad on the inside, probably….

Behind them though was Linda who also seemed to be surprised that I woke up, but instead of joining in on the happy gathering, she just smile warmly to me, left a small bowl of food for me next to the doorway and left.

Kazuma would soon speak up, "Seriously, Why does all the badass stuff happen to you guys while I'm gone?"

"Probably because- You know what nevermind. Forget what I said." I said as I was about to insult Kazuma in a tier 3 roast.

"Hey, what were you gonna say? Go on say it" Kazuma said in a low voice, I just looked the other way and said "I said its because your one good attribute really is just as useless as Aqua…"

Why can't I help myself when making jabs at him…

"Alright, then good luck getting this food then…" Kazuma said as he put the bowl of food that Linda brought from the doorway to the far side of the room.

I just shook my head and said, "The human body can live off of its own energy for about 3 weeks without eating, it'll only take hours to get my food. Nice try…"

I should've kept my fucking mouth shut, because Kazuma started to eat my food on the table right in front of me. You Dick….

It's been a day since almost bleeding out, and I'm fucking starving. Not hesitating to get my food, I used snatch from my arm to try and grab the bowl.

For the most part I succeeded, but Kazuma had already eaten half the food that was in there...I still ate it….

"Enjoy your meal, sir" Kazuma said as he had a smug face on while leaving the room, not paying attention to him I continued to eat and flip him off at the same time.

Soon the rest of them followed him while Darkness was the last to leave, she looked back while I was still eating.

I looked towards her and gave her a glare with the one finger up to my lips in the hush motion. She needs to keep quiet for my singing...

(So just a quick note, recently I got a review from a guest account that didn't like the singing from last chapter. He didn't like the singing or the fact that I'm shipping ma boi Tsukiyo with Darkness. This ship is an Aircraft Carrier, so unless I kamikaze it, nothing much is gonna affect it, sorry not sorry. The 'singing' on the other hand got me thinking whether or not if I'm straying a bit away from the feel and vibe of Konosuba (even though this is technically a fanfiction where it's just a rehash of the LN but with a different character and different choices that somewhat lead up to the same outcome…) So what I'm trying to say here, is "Should I keep in songs that Tsukiyo will sing in the future?" Of course 90% of the songs he sing won't be something like Invisible from OML (One More Light), but will be more suited to the situation of where the characters are and what's happening. The singing in the last chapter was meant for distraction purposes while the singing in here was just for fun and to stop the deafening silence. If you've experienced deafening silence, then you know how weird and painfully awkward it is.

Leave a review or send me a private message, I would like to know because if only one person voices his/her opinion then there is a chance that I might ignore it and the fic will be tuned more towards me rather than everyone else AND me. It doesn't matter how small or big your opinion is, I just want to hear it.

P.S: Chapters 15, 16 and second half of 14 are not part of the actual Light Novel since it followed Kazuma and Dust's teammates, so tell me how I did on my first attempt on ACTUAL shit writing, Thanks.)

Reference:

1 - Death from Above 1979 - Nomad -- Outrage! is Now Album (The song is fucking good, listen to it)


	17. A Dungeon, Boredom, and Homemade Food

The day after I woke up and recovered from nearly dying for the what 4th or 5th time? I lost count which is a pretty bad sign…But anyways, day after I Woke up, the group, a.k.a Kazuma only, decided to head into a dungeon.

This was something I was 100% ok with, regular sized hallways, not much areas to be sneak attacked, free stuff, and medium tier monsters that prove a challenge for novices and beginners. Compared to everything else we fought, this made the most sense as a beginner quest, only problem was….

"No, I don't wanna..." Megumin said, someone slap some sense into her…

"Why not? This is probably the easiest it's gonna get while having the feeling of accomplishment on an actual quest" I said, please don't let the reason be what I think it is...

"Don't care, Don't wanna!" Megumin said as she tried to run from us, using the snatch ability I held on to her coat and reeled her back to the group.

"You're part of this party, we need to make sure you suffer just the same as us when everything goes wrong…" I said to her, which was really sad because this was almost every time we go out on an adventure.

She struggled to get out of my grip as she said "No! Please no! There would be no point of my existence if I were to go into a dungeon! I'd cause a collapse and kill us all! I'd become a normal person if I can't use my spell!" At least she's aware that she isn't normal…

Kazuma would soon speak up and say, "Don't you remember what you said when you met us, That you'd carry the gear if we ever got into a dungeon because of your lack of magic, and not to throw you away like a used napkin?" I...haven't heard that from her, was that after I bailed on them? Boy did I dodge a bullet...

Megumin lowered her head slowly, as she stopped struggling and said in a sad tone, "All I can do in dungeon raids is hold the bags, I'll really be useless…" Damn, even I'm starting to feel bad for terrorist loli…

Kazuma taking care of the situation like a professional lier said to her, "Don't worry, you just have to sit in front of the entrance and wait there just in case if any dangerous monster come for us. I'm gonna be relying on your magic when the time comes ok?" Like a pro, this reassured Megumin and made her mood a bit better, top tier lies everyone, round of applause to scum-boi Kazuma!

Aqua who was lazily lying down near the fireplace of the guild asked Kazuma, "Shouldn't we get a thief for this type of job? We should get Chris since she's a professional at this type of stuff."

"Well, I would've but it seems that she's busy at the moment cleaning up the mess of a teammate from getting her work pushed into her. Besides, I heard that the mobs in Dungeons dont change from seasons, so we should be fine for the most part." Kazuma said while leaning back in the booth, "What about traps and other stuff that can easily kill us?" I asked, every dungeon has one, the only thing mattered was what type of traps there were and how they would kill us.

Kazuma while still leaning back told me "I learned a couple of new skills from Chris and Keith, one of Dust's teammates. I got 'Detect Traps', 'Disarm Traps', 'Detect Enemy', 'Hide', and 'Farsight'. They'll be enough for the dungeon." Ok, well it looks like Kazuma isn't the 2nd useless one anymore

"Oh wait, I don't have my sword since it was destroyed by Jack, you might have to wait a little while longer for my new sword to be made. I can't be a combatant in the state I'm in right now." Darkness said as she chimed in on the conversation, did she really not have a sword since the Jack Frost incident? How the hell is she still alive!?

"Don't worry, you were never a combatant from the beginning so that won't be a problem, also we have Tsukiyo, so...yeah…." Kazuma said calmly, when I heard that, I tried with all my might not to laugh, my mind went straight to those overreacting black guys from the internet with the fake rap battle (1). oh god, this makes me want to bust out laughing!

I had to look to away from the guys to not laugh, it hurted not to, and I really wanted to laugh…

"Ok, let me explain this so no one misunderstands anything, and feels hurt. I'm going in the dungeon alone. I hope you guys can escort me on the way there and let me do my thing." Kazuma said...

….wat

The dungeon that we would head to would be a lot farther than what we usually traveled, and instead of the minor 1-2 hours of travel that we did, it doubled into 2-4 hours of walking and taking breaks.

Why, just why did he have to choose a dungeon this far away from the town? If this was the closest one we have near us, then I might as well level up for the sole purpose of increasing my stamina.

Going from the town, to the hills, into a forest, I felt like this was more of an expedition rather than a small quest.

The forest around us was a lot thicker than the ones near Axel before the hills, so there was a lot more branches and a lot more uneven terrain.

We soon came upon a small cabin that was just to the right of an ominous looking cave that had advanced darkness coming from it. It was really eery to look into.

Alright, so the story with this dungeon and it's name "Keele's Dungeon" is the fact that some wizard from long ago, named Keele fell in love with a girl from a noble clan, and wasn't able to love her because of status differences. So he soon became the strongest wizard in the land to forget about her, but wasn't able to get rid of her in his mind. So he gets invited from the king for a banquet, which I can assume is just fancy dinner, and rewarded him by granting any one wish with no restrictions. Being the edgy guy he was, he said that he had a wish they couldn't be fulfilled, soon he Kidnapped the daughter of the noble clan, built this dungeon, didn't come out, and probably died I guess, no one knows what happened.

You know, this reminds me of a creepier version of Romeo and Juliet, but Romeo is sort of psychopathic and forced Juliet to come with him without a choice.

Kazuma stood at the entrance of the cave looking at pitch black emptiness that stared back him.

Before he went in he told us, "Alright, I'm going in alone, so you guys just stay here. If for some reason I'm not back by night, then go get help from Taylors group. That's only IF I don't come back, but I only plan on scouting out the place and running at the first sight of trouble. I should be back soon." Kazuma mentioned someone named Taylor, I guess that's one of the guys from Dust's group from 2 days ago.

Darkness seemed to be worried and asked, "Are you sure about going solo? I know that smaller numbers in dungeon areas are more advantageous in terms of not getting spotted, but can you really handle yourself? I know that I can't help from my loud clanking armour..."

Megumin came next, "Yeah, I just useless in general when it comes to dungeon missions, sorry."

Aqua, who wasn't worried said, "I'll go with you."

Did she forget the plan that was told to us about 3 times, or is she a genuine idiot?

Kazuma explained the plan to Aqua for the 4th time, "Don't follow me, I'm going in alone. With the 'Farsight' ability that I got from Keith, I can see in the dark. I've already tried this before and it works good enough, with or without a light. I can still determine distance and make out things just form observing them. Monster are drawn to light, this ability is good enough for the dungeon. I may be the weakest here, but I do have skills that can let me survive in a dungeon on my own now. 'Detect enemy' and 'Hide' are self explanatory, I can detect enemies and hide in the shadows when I need to. I don't plan on dying again, especially in a beginner friendly dungeon like this one."

Alright, I heard all I need to hear, "I got it, have fun and don't die." I said calmly, if Kazuma has the skills he needs for a solo exploration, then I'll give him that chance to prove it to us.

I started to head back to the cabin and wait for him there. Darkness and Megumin seemed surprised to see that I would just let him go in the dungeon on his own rather than stop him.

"You're not gonna stop him or say anything that might change his mind?" Megumin asked, Without looking back I just waved my left hand back at them knowing that already made my choice.

This was a smart thing for Kazuma to do, for once. The more experience he has with going solo in a place where he only relies on his instincts and senses, the better he'll get….probably…

As I went up to the cabin that was near us, I opened the door that was made of both wood and leaves and looked inside. Because this was a beginner friendly dungeon, you could easily see that a lot of people were here before us. The floor was full of old footprints both big and small, the table in the middle if the room had multiple pieces of papers laid saying "Read first for beginners!", the chairs near the walls were out of place and tipped over, and the firewood for the fireplace, that was to the left of the table and the farthest wall away from me, has been replaced with new untouched ones.

Taking one of the chairs near the walls, I placed it near the table and moved some of the guides and maps on the table to the side so my feet could have space. I would sit down, lean back, and place my feet in the table to relax for the time being when Kazuma was away in the dungeon. Since I didn't have anything to keep me from being bored I just stared at the ceiling.

It wouldn't be too long before Megumin and Darkness came in and made themselves at home to wait for Kazuma. Aqua wasn't here with us, but she can handle herself...probably...

It would be just about an hour since Kazuma went into the Dungeon, and I was starting to get hungry. Already being tired from watching the ceiling, I took my feet off of the table and went exploring around the cabin.

Megumin was on the other side of the table reading the guides and map from boredom, while Darkness was near one of windows nearest to the front door watching anything that was outside. Aqua was somewhere, but I didn't care.

 _The blonde one has been sneaking peeks over your direction_

Is she now?

 _Yeah, and it's irritating. Go do something or head into another room, I'm tired of staying in the same spot._

Alright, fine. Let me do some exploring...

Walking in to the other room that was next to the main room, I seemed to have found the kitchen where everything was either very dusty or burned from failed cooking. I walked up to what looked like a fridge that was in the shape of a treasure chest, but more grittier.

Opening the chest, (Dun, Dun, Dun, Du~n!), I found multiple food items that looked either almost rotted out, stale and moldy, a small box of spices and other things to mix in, and a small jar of yellow liquid, please don't let this be piss... Well, eating isn't an option anymore.

My stomach growled for a moment before settling down, ok fine eating is #1 priority. Gotta find something before starvation hits. The rations that we had in the beginning were already eaten, and because I don't want food poisoning I might have to hunt for something.

Walking out of this room and back into the other, I would take my sword that was in the corner and placed it on my back. "I'll be back, won't be a while…" I said, the two that were doing something to ease their boredom just groaned out "Ok…"

As I left the cabin, I looked around and all I saw was just a thicc forest. It'll probably be easy to get lost, so I should stay a close distance near the cabin. Walking out about 5-10 feet into the forest and around the general area of the forest, it didn't look like there was much animals living in the forest for the moment.

Might be because of the weather, season, or the amount of adventurers that pillaged the area before us, but one thing was sure, it was empty.

I looked behind the cabin, hoping that one adventurer had the knowledge of a farmer and planted something edible in the back before leaving.

For once, I was actually right and saw a small farm growing potatoes, carrots, and wheat, And I was glad to see them. I could make a minecraft joke, but this was something too good to be made fun of.

Upon closer inspection, it looked like about 40% of the food here was actually edible and not infested by either ants or other small creatures, so taking whatever I could carry in my arms and heading back to the cabin, I could cook up something easy and fulfilling enough for the moment.

Darkness who was still looking out the window saw me with the food that I managed to find and asked "Where did you find those?" I replied while trying not to drop any of the potatoes or carrots on the ground, "I found them around the back, since most of them were no good this was all I could get out. Mind opening the door for me?"

Opening the door to let me in, I would head back into the kitchen where Darkness and Megumin followed me and would try to prepare a small meal for the 3 of us to enjoy until Kazuma and Aqua? got back.

Placing the vegetables on the tables with the least amount if dust on it, I would take my cloak off, roll up my sleeves, turned on the water that thankfully worked, and started to wash the vegetables thoroughly to get any grime off them before cooking them.

After I washed them, stood there for a while. With the bare minimum that I have in this kitchen, what can I make?

I know that I had a small journal back in my room in Japan with some pretty useful recipes that were cheap but tasted good, but sadly I don't have all of the recipes memorised.

I guess I'll go very basic just to stop hunger...

Looking around the area, it seems that there was a small pot big enough to fit enough vegetables on there without having to make a second batch for extras. I grabbed that pot and washed it good, after that I went inside the chest and took out the bag of spices and other stuff, and the yellow jar of hopefully not piss.

Inside the bag was 3 different bags, and inside those 3 bags was a white powder, a black power and a mixed one with leaves and garlic.

I tasted the white powder, wasn't coke sadly, but was salt, and the black power was pepper. Hesitantly opening and sniffing the yellow jar, I was glad to smell the familiar aroma of olive oil.

Ok, this can work…

I grabbed the ingredients that I had and put them in the bowl and took them out of the kitchen and in the other room where the fireplace was. When I got near the table, I asked Megumin to clear it out and make space.

Then, grabbing one side of the table, I dragged it near the fireplace where I would need it for later.

Ok, let's start…

Taking all of the ingredients out of the bowl and onto one of the unimportant sheets of paper without any markings on them, I would start with the potatoes and cut them into fours.

Because the kitchen in the other room didn't have knifes to use, I had to use my Red Queen as an extreme knife just to cut them. It's a good thing I washed it after every morning…

After the potatoes were cut, I grabbed the jar of oil and poured a little into the bowl where I would have to use my hand to smear the oil around the pot so nothing would stick to the side or bottom. After I did that, I placed the potatoes in and went for the carrots, this time, I'd just cut the carrots in half the long way before putting them with the potatoes.

Now that the 2 main ingredients were there, all I had to do was put in a little flavor. Opening the bags that had the 4 different ingredients, I grabbed a little more than a pinch of salt and pepper before sprinkling it over the 2 vegetables.

After that, I'd grab about one thing of garlic and diced it into cubes, this would be so much easier with a knife, but I didn't have one sadly. After the dicing was done, I'd put it into the bowl pot and did the same with the leaves that were there. Because the Red Queen was sort of broad, the leaves were almost turned into mush, taking a small taste of the leaves I was able to determine that it was thyme. Grabbing a small portion of thyme I'd place it with it the others before using my brute strength to mix in all the ingredients to make sure all the pepper, salt, thyme, and garlic spread around to have equal flavor. I did this for about 3-5 minutes before stopping

I'd walk back into the kitchen to wash my hands and find a wooden spoon and a wooden knife…

….oh for fucks sake-You know what, that's what I get for not exploring properly…

Grabbing the wooden spoon and my sword, I'd use the exceed from my sword to light the fire place, placed the pot on top of the fireplace where it was held on by 2 hooks and stirred the pot often to make sure nothing gets stuck.

I did this for about 30-35 minutes before the food was ready to be served (2)

Both Darkness and Megumin seemed to be in awe at the basic food that I made. Going back to the kitchen to find some plates, I would serve them a portion of the food that I made and would make sure to at least save some for both Kazuma and Aqua.

As I served them food, the potatoes seemed to be slightly burned on some of the edges. I guess I'll make a mental note to decrease time from 30 to 25 minutes.

Taking a bite out of the food that I made, I couldn't help but feel unsatisfied with what I made. It tasted good, but that was just about it. No flavors made me want to enjoy it and the slightly burned edges worsened the taste. It could be just me who feels that way, but I feel like this could've been made better.

Oh well, there's always next time I guess…

As I continued to eat the rest of my food, Kazuma came back from his adventure from exploring the dungeon, while Aqua was a mess and sobbing. Did I want to know what happened? No not really, I'm just gonna finish my food.

"Oh hey, we have more food? I thought All the rations were gone." Kazuma asked, "Yeah, they're all gone. I just made some food from the garden out back. Not bad I guess..." I said as I ate the last bit of carrot.

Aqua who was still sobbing came up to Darkness and put her head on her lap. Again, I don't want to know, don't tell us.

"I don't want to ask what happened, but I can probably assume what happened and know that it might be true, but I'll ask anyways, 'What happened'?" Megumin asked, betting he made her bait.

"Kazuma...he...sniff….he left me to the horrible things!" Nailed it, also dick move but funny.

"Not my fault, her holy aura that she has attracted all the undead in the dungeon. Would've been easier by myself." Kazuma said with no remorse as I Served him some food, Logic checks out, she's been bait from the very beginning then…

"What do you want me to do then? Drop to the level of a shut-in with no real skills outside of being a scumbag! My devotee's would lose faith in her holiness and follow Eris of all people! Eris!" Aqua cried as Megumin patted her head for comfort, she a cat now? I guess that make her a bit more useful if she was.

"Go back into the dungeon and reflect in your actions! And while you're at it learn to have some proper manners on being an actual human being from the Lich and lady! At least they had some humanity in them!" Kazuma shouted as he started to eat my food, "Hey, this is pretty good. You should make this more often."

"Hey! Don't ignore me! I, a goddess, don't want to go down into an even lower level than you and learn from a undead and his dead girlfriend!" Aqua sbouted back.

At this point, shutting them up would be a miracle because I'm just about ready to knock them out forcefully.

Darkness who was curious about what Aqua said asked about the supposed 'Lich and dead lady'

"Yeah, if I remember what Aqua said earlier, the lady who died had no regrets from getting kidnapped by the lich and died perfectly. The lich wanted to know whether or not the lady was gifted happiness after dying. But it seems self explanatory at this point, I guess she was blessed the moment she escaped the kingdom with the Lich." Kazuma said as he took a couple of bites from his bowl

"...I bet she really was happy after leaving the kingdom, almost like it was tying her down and finally being able to escape that place brought her the greatest gift of all. Those moments of being free were probably her happiest." Darkness said in a solemn tone, this wasn't something the normal Darkness would say because an innuendo couldn't be tied into it, but this was probably the Real Darkness...

I made sure to take a mental note of this, could be important…

"Oh, there's no more food left. I guess Kazuma ate the last portion" I said, Aqua would then proceed to try and kill Kazuma before quitting and heading outside to head back to Axel. It was sort of dark out, almost like it was 7:30, so the journey back home would make all of us hit the bed, or hay in Kazuma and Aquas case.

Remembering what Darkness said back in the cabin, it made me think. We don't really know her whatsoever do we?

I mean, other than her 'Name' anything else about her in terms of who she is as a person is a mystery…

Kazuma came from Japan same as me, Aqua I guess has some relation to the gods and Axis cult since she keeps bragging about it, so. Many. Goddamn. TIMES., Megumin is part of a weeaboo like cult called the Crimson Demon clan, and we have yet to know anything about Darkness…

Only a couple of options stood out to me if I thought about it seriously:

A - She is a runaway from a castle or noble like family, and escaped because of some issues

B - She was an orphan and left her homeland because of it being shitty

C - She's a rogue and escaped because of illegal shit, Chris might be in on it too

D - She's a P.O.W (Prisoner of War) and trying to live a good life without all the bullshit interfering.

All the options above have their flaws and plot holes, but it was only a rough layout for now until I got more info. Whether or not it be small dialogues like from before or accidental eavesdropping, I'm going to find out anyways cause it sounds fun.

We would soon arrive near Axel at night time so I would have to make another torch that made sure we didn't get lost. Thankfully, Kazuma had basic tier magic which made lighting the torch easier rather than using Red Queens exceed.

When we got in town, we went our separate ways and headed to where we would sleep. Megumin went one direction, Kazuma and Aqua went the same, and Darkness went another.

I would head back to my hotel just before sneaking one more glance at Darkness, I knew she was hiding something important, what it was I had no clue, but It was definitely similar to what Kazuma said about the Lich and the Lady did, so I guess I had something to base this conspiracy off of.

I looked towards the direction of my hotel and started walking there, heading to my bed where I'd sleep and wake up for another day.

Reference:

1 - Supa hot fire boi, 100 degree leather jacket cause I'm supa hot B O I!

2 - Actual recipe --www . centercutcook . com/garlic-roasted-potatoes-and-carrots/


	18. Unexpected Shopkeeper and a Mansion

It was early morning, and for some reason we had to go to some random store while leaving Darkness behind in the guild for any possibles quests that could be doable, I don't even need to mention how much this is a mistake, but hey maybe this time it'll be different and she might choose a completable quest….Oh who am I kidding, we're screwed…

"So can you tell me why we had to go to this store early morning? I lost an hour or two of sleep you know?" I said as I yawned tiredly towards Kazuma and Aqua.

"I need to learn some offensive skills from someone, and we're going to their shop to get it." Kazuma said, that's so stupid for something this early morning, "If you want to learn offensive skills then work on your short sword or learn to do some 3rd degree roasting like what you did to Darkness yesterday. That was almost god tier." I said

"Not that type of offensive skill, and the short sword can only do so much for me before it becomes useless. Besides, skills are the way to go, it's the lifeline of this world...Well, to an extent I guess…" Kazuma said, we soon reached a small store that was nicely made and sent out a feeling of warmness as you stood in front of it.

Kazuma would soon turn to Aqua and say in a very cautious tone, "Ok, listen: We are here as customers. Don't act rash or violent. No magic either get it?" Aqua looked offended for a moment, See, you're learning the offensive skills already!

"Who do you take me for? A Delinquent? A Bandit? I'm not some run of the mill ruffian, I'm a goddess! A holy being! What makes you think I'll do something to tarnish the reputation of the Axis cult? Sheesh, you should have more faith in me…" Aqua said in a arrogant manner, She shouldn't really disrespect Bandit though, he had to kill and deal drugs to get him in the place he is right now…(1)

As we walked into the store, we were greeted by a warm welcome from what sounds sounds to be a woman.

"Welcome to the stor-Ahhh!!" She tried to say until she saw Aqua, don't worry she's hideous at first, but you get used to it.

The store owner was a women who seemed to be about, maybe 25 or 26-ish, had long brown hair that went down to her back and covered one of her eyes, and wore a purple and black robe.

Aqua looked at the store owner at shouted at her with anger "Ahhh!? So this is where you were hiding you damn undead! You dare set up shop in a nice place like this where I have to sleep in a crappy stable with the NEET!? I should punish you by burning this place and purifying you just to get you to know your place! I'll do this in the name of the Axis Cult!" Aqua said as she ignored everything Kazuma said literally 2 minutes ago.

Ready to pounce at the store owner, Aqua was just about to jump at her up until Kazuma hit her in the back of her head with the hilt of his sword, Aqua would sulk in the corner from getting hit while Kazuma greeted the store owner who almost got pounced by the monkey, "Hey Wiz, long time no see! We came for a small visit"

It's too goddamn early for this shit...

When the monkey finally calmed down and stopped trying to attack "Wiz", who is the store owner I guess, she sat near a table closest to the window and started to act all high and mighty.

"What kind of place is this to not serve tea to their Loyal Customer? Do they know how to?" Aqua said snobbishly as she rested her head on her right arm.

Wiz frantically went to the back of the store and tried to find some tea to brew for Aqua, "Ahh! Sorry! I'll try to bring it now!" Wiz said, ok now this is just straight up bullying….

Kazuma, saving Wiz the time and effort of serving Aqua tea, said to Wiz, "Don't do that, I've never heard of a magic item shop that serves tea to their customer!" Wiz sighed a breath of relief, as she stopped brewing the tea for Aqua.

As I was standing there tired and bored from having to come with them for some reason, I decided to look at what items were on the shelf and see if any of them were useful.

I picked up a small bottle that seemed to be fizzing a bit on the inside, "Don't pick that one up so rashly, it'll explode upon strong impact. Please be careful." Wiz said, I put it back gently, not wanting to replicate multiple M-80 firecrackers exploding on my hand (2).

I would pick up the one next to it only to have the same warning, "That'll explode if you open the bottle." I was a little safer from this one, but still put it back cautiously. It this a bomb shop?

I picked up the next one, "That'll explode from water" and then the next one "It explodes when heated…

"Is there nothing but explosives here!? Because if so, then give me a nuke! I feel like causing Hiroshima 2.0!" I said out of frustration, Wiz seemed a bit confused from what I said "Nuke? Hiro….shima?" Oh right, fantasy world...no Japanese history…

I calmed down for a moment, and said, "Nothing, forget what I said." Kazuma could be seen snickering in the corner, He's next….

Wiz, who was standing near the countertop caught a glimpse of my arm, "Oh Hey, you too are a Demon…" She said, since she this was her first time seeing my arm it was no surprise to me when she said-

Wait a minute, did she say 'You too'?

"What do you mean 'you too'?" I said confused, is she also a Demon? Hold on, now that I think about it, did I just ignore the fact that Aqua said 'Damned Undead' when she attacked her!? I know the things in this world are backwards as hell, but I feel like I should listen in a bit for some keywords that seem out of place...

Kazuma, who finally jumped in to explain this weird situation, said "Oh right, you guys haven't met yet...Well, let me introduce you guys: Wiz this is one of my party members Tsukiyo, he a Demon. Tsukiyo, this is Wiz, an undead Lich that we failed to kill that one day."

….Excuse me but what the fuck…

I'm just...more confused now…

Wiz waved her hand at me with a warm smile and told me, "Hello Tsukiyo. I know that I'm an undead being, but I don't plan on harming anyone. Please don't spread this information to other people."

I waved back, still confused, but not wanting to understand only to get more confused.

"But it's strange, I've never seen a Demon like you. The presence is there, I can feel it, but...it's a different Aura than what I've felt for most of my lifetime as a Lich…" She said, well I know what you mean, it's not everyday that you could feel the presence of the 2nd son of a Legendary Dark Knight that took down an demon emperor by himself from an alternate reality.

 _Ok, Now you're just being an ass._

Yeah, but she doesn't know that…

Not bringing up what I said to Vergil, I told Wiz, "Well, that's the first time someone has told me that and not tried to kill me so thanks I guess?" I really hope that, that different Demonic feeling doesn't get me killed someday...

"Alright," Kazuma said while trying to get Wiz's attention, "Wiz, you mentioned that you could teach me some skills of a lich right? Well I have some skills points laying around so I would like to learn something from you."

Aqua, having no manners whatsoever, spits out all her tea on Wiz, how she got tea I have no idea, all I know is that it got spat on Wiz and is just plain wrong to do, even if she is an undead.

"Kazuma what are you thinking! You want the skills of a Lich? Lich skills are are all bad and evil! They're almost relatives of slugs that like to hang around dark and damp places." Aqua complained, Wiz hearing the insult of being similar to slugs made her have tears in her eyes

"Hey! That's too mean!" Wiz cried, nope, it's just Aqua being normal…

"Hey! I don't care! I just need to learn more offensives skills to try and be on par with the party in terms of offensive capabilities, Tsukiyo is almost fine the way he is if you don't include his edgy persona, but other than that, we can't rely on his forever. You how know well enough how much of a pain in the ass this party is…" Kazuma said as he stood firm on his decision for getting offensive skills.

I'd try to retort back with me not being edgy, but dammit, Kazuma got me beat for now...

"Ugh, As a goddess I can't stand my servant and teammate of mine learn skills from a lowly undead. Let alone a Lich…" Aqua complained, when was Kazuma considered your servant…

" 'A Goddess?' I almost got destroyed when you tried to purify me, so could it be that you're really a…" Wiz tried to asked, but was slowly losing her cool and started to tremble…

Did she not know that Aqua is a goddess? I mean she looks absolutely nothing like it, and her IQ seems pretty low too so, I couldn't really blame her…

"I guess you can say that, but since you probably won't spread this around I'll tell you the truth. I am the goddess Aqua, that's right, the same one from the famous Axis Sect Aqua! Mind your tone when speaking to me lowly undead!" Aqua boasted as she introduced herself and the Axis Sect.

Upon hear this Wiz, fell down to her knees and backed away from Aqua while trembling, Man I never thought I'd see someone actually be afraid of Aqua…

Kazuma would soon speak up to reassure that Aqua wouldn't do anything to harm her, "Hey Wiz, I know that the undead and goddess don't get along at all, but you don't have to worry about Aqua, she's not much of a threat…"

"It's not that, that I'm afraid of…" Yeah, no one would be afraid of Aqua for that reason, undead or not…, "It's just that I heard that the Axis Cult has some brain problems so its best not to be involved with them. That's common sense for this world, and since she said that she was the goddess, which would be their leader so…" Wiz said as she got quieter.

Huh, no wonder I feel like I lose brain cells whenever Aqua says or does something stupid...Well, it's a good thing Linda and Wiz warned me about it before the permanent damage started to happen…

"What...WHAT DID YOU SAY!?" Aqua shouted as she heard her 'Cult' get dissed, Wiz would cower in fear apologizing from saying the truth…

"I'm Sorry!"

I would have to try and protect Wiz from getting purified from Aqua while Kazuma held Aqua back and made her move away from Wiz. After Aqua had calmed down and got tired from struggling, Kazuma let her go while she went to browse around the shop opening bottles of either drugs or explosives and sniffing them…..yeah, not gonna ask….

Kazuma would soon head to Wiz who was now on her feet and hoping to learn a skill from her, but before he could do that, "Oh, speaking of which, I heard recently that you guys defeated Beldia. I'm surprised that you guys did it since he a very powerful swordsman in the Demon King's Bosses, good job."

Hold on, how would she know that he's the strongest swordsman in the Demon King's army?

I looked at Kazuma with a confused face and was met with the same, he'd ask her "Beldia? You mean the undead headless horseman that my party member antagonized for no good reason? That Beldia?" Kazuma questioned

Wiz seemed to be confused in our confusion, "Yeah that one, why?" I would ask her "How do you know that?" Wiz who seemed to be the only one without confusion finally realised that she hadn't told us anything we needed to know.

"Oh! I'm Sorry, I forgot to make this clear, I'm one of the bosses for the Demon King's Army. Sorry If I left this out!" She said with a warm smile

….ok...um…..I don't know how to….what..?

Aqua would shout and pounce at Wiz at the same time, "Catch Her!"

Wiz who was pinned by Aqua cried out loud, "Hold on, it's not what you think, but it sort of is, but not to the extent that your thinking of! Let me explain myself, please!"

As soon as Wiz was in a spot where Aqua could hold her down properly, she said in a happy tone with her eyes sparkling "Hey, if we kill her now our debt will be clear! We might even have enough leftover for a mansion to live in, not a crappy stable! We could be living rich with no more hardships!"

Before making a decision on what to do with Wiz, Kazuma got down to her Level and asked her some questions,

"Aqua, hold on. Let's ask some questions first…" Kazuma said, and for the next 10 minutes, we would play 20 questions with Wiz and have her spill the beans on why she's here….

So, long story short:

Even though she is trying to live peacefully as a human, she still has to maintain a barrier that's preventing other adventurers from getting to the castle. We could kill her and get this over with, but Killing her would prove no point since there are multiple people maintaining it with her. Also she's sort of a boss character, but not really a boss character. She's sort of like that one boss character in games where you don't have to kill it because it doesn't drop any loot, or progresses the story any further, it's just there with little to no purpose unless you're going for the 100% completion rate…

After Wiz explained herself and got up from not being pinned by Aqua anymore, Kazuma asked one more time about the skill he wanted to learn, and this time without anymore stupid interruptions he was able to do it.

"Alright, I'm gonna show you one of my skills 'Drain Touch', but I'm gonna need a target to practice on." Wiz said, I'd go and be the target because I Just wanted this day to end so I could go do whatever bullshit we had planned, have things go wrong, and go home to sleep…

"Hey Aqua, be her target…" Kazuma said. Or not I guess, I mean with the shit Aqua might pull this is going to take longer, but, yeah, ok that's fine too…

"What? You want your goddess to be tainted by the powers of a filthy undead like her!?" Aqua said as she tried to stop the idea of using her as a target, Using this opportunity to make her comply and not make this take any longer, I started to instigate her a bit and her 'Holy' Powers

"What, you scared that her powers as a Lich will hurt you too much? I thought you were a Goddess, and not an arrogant drunk who only talks big." What I said seemed to have _T R I G G E R E D_ Aqua, she shot her head towards me, gave me a nasty look, and said in a rude tone "What did you say you filthy demon? I couldn't hear you because of your inferiority compared to a goddess like me. You should keep your mouth shut before you feel the wrath of the Axis Cult"

I'd turn my head around and say in a convincing and sarcastic voice, "Oh well pardon me, Goddess Aqua. I just thought that your 'title' was just for show, I mean if you were a real goddess, you shouldn't be able to feel anything from Wiz since you consider her a low tier undead, I'm so sorry for having to doubt you and your holy wisdom!"

Taking the bait easily and getting overconfident, Aqua seemed to extend her arm out to Wiz and have Wiz use her skill on her.

Wiz timidly placed her hands in Aqua arm, and tried to use drain touch, but nothing happened.

"Huh? It's not working...I can't drain any mana out from her…" Wiz said in a confused tone, looking at Aqua who was smug as fuck, started to ask "Hey, What's wrong? I thought you wanted to drain some mana from me. Can a low tier undead like you really pull off a skill like that? I thought you were a boss, but it seems to me you're just some phony trying to be one…"

I was just as confused as Wiz was, up until Kazuma came up behind the snickering Aqua and slapped her in the back of the head, "Hey stop resisting her powers! I need her to do that so I can learn from her."

"Hey!" Aqua said as she was not paying attention to Wiz anymore "This is a battle between a Goddess and a Lich! Don't interrupt the mood! Why should I let someone so low tier taint a holy spirit like me?"

Kazuma would apologize in Aqua place for being a bitch, and Wiz would try to use the skill one more time, this time succeeding and draining some of Aqua's mana. Wiz's hands would glow a barf green with some particles appearing as she was draining the mana.

Looking back on Kazuma, he seems to have his card out and learning it for him to be able to use in the future…

"Um, Aqua? My hands are starting to hurt...Ok, now it's burning, it hurts a lot! Hey, please stop! I'm starting to fade! I'm being purified, someone help! I'm gonna disappear if this continues! Ahhh!" Wiz shouted in pain and fear as Aqua started to purify her, I'd use my demon arm to punch her in the back of her head to make her stop.

"OW!" Aqua complained, Kazuma gave me the look of satisfaction as Aqua held her head to soothe the pain. This was the first time I've ever hit a girl, but because it was Aqua who got hit, I'm not sure if this counts as animal abuse, then again PETA doesn't exist in this world so…

"Excuse me, is Wiz here?"

My thought were interrupted as a man opened the door asking for Wiz, he seemed to be about late forties and wore professional clothes.

As soon as Wiz went up to him, he spoke with her for awhile before turning to us…

So here what happened:

This dude is a real estate agent, and for some reason, there are spirits living- Well, haunting a mansion. And this was a recurring problem since the exorized spirits always came back.

The reason why he went to Wiz for this type of problem was because she was an expert in handling spirits and all that. Well, she is a Lich, which the dude probably doesn't know, so...I guess that makes sense?

Originally, he was going to ask her to take to care of the situation, but because of a certain persons attitude towards the undead, she couldn't because she was just about near death. She couldn't stand up straight, she was very weak, and couldn't do the job that the man wanted her to do.

But for some reason, it seems that Aqua grew actual feelings and accepted the job in her stead, I guess she can feel guilt after all.

After "we" accepted the job the real estate agent had, we would pack our stuff and head to the mansion that was haunted. Because we're taking a job like this, we were granted a free stay before everyone knew that the mansion was haunted and wanted to stay as far away from it as possible.

Other than clothes for the winter, my sword, the cloak I had on, and this toothbrush that I totally didn't steal from the hotel, I really didn't have much to pack.

I met up with the rest of the group as we got in front of the mansion. Even when in front of it, it gave off this ominous feeling of being watched, and I think everyone else felt the same way…

"Can we really exorcise all the spirits that are here? The gentlemen did say that the spirits came back every time they were exorcised." Darkness asked, I replied "It's not 'We' per se, but mainly Aqua since she has the skills to do so, as for if we can? Well, we'll have to figure something out one way or another, we already accepted the job, No backing out now…"

Aqua feeling confident said, "Don't worry guys leave this to me! I'll purge all the spirits in this mansion as much as I can!" I guess Aqua for once was enthusiastic about this job since it meant living in the mansion for free and not a stable.

"Ah! I can see it now!" Aqua said as her hands and eyes started to glow yellow, and was waving her hands in a circle in front of her, "There was a maid who was living here at the same time the nobles were here. Things got spicy and they ended up having a child named Anna Filante Asteroid. An illegitimate child of a noble! The noble died from sickness and the maid mysteriously left, having no one to care for her the child was born into this world and died not knowing her parents…"

I started walking towards the mansion and unlocked the front doors with the keys given to me by the agent. I would take a small tour of the mansion instead of hearing a shitty fanfiction from Aqua.

Because the mansion seemed like it wasn't used in a long time, there was dust and cobwebs almost everywhere. The living room was pretty big, had a medium sized table big enough for about 8 or 9 people, had a fireplace that had no wood left with a pink couch in front of it that could only hold 2 people sadly, and had old red carpet that covered most of the floor.

The kitchen on the other hand was pretty big, it was the size of a bedroom with the appliances in place, a collection of pots and pans for different occasions and a had lots of storage for wheat, meat, wine and other foods that could be in there, but wasn't. There was a small island in the middle of the kitchen and the countertop looked and felt like it could be granite. Not making the same mistake as last time in the cabin, I searched around for cooking utensils and found a small rack with different sized knives, cleavers, and spoons. If I ever got a chance to go back to Japan for just one day, I'd go get my journal that has most of my survival recipes and try them out here.

Heading into the hallways, it seemed a bit...empty. Other than the occasional candle that was lit near the walls and doorways, it was barren and empty.

There was a couple of doors that had different stuff in each of them: One was a janitor room, another was a maid room, one lead to the upstairs area which I could assume is where the bedrooms and attic are, one of them was a standard bathroom, another was a giant bath probably meant for groups, and another one lead out to the backyard.

Heading upstairs and nearly tripping on one of the stairs for it being poorly lit, the hallways seemed to almost the same as the one downstairs.

The only difference was that there was only one bathroom in the middle of the hallway, while the other doors were bedrooms. In total, there were about 5-6 bedrooms.

I took the bedroom farthest away from where everyone else would probably sleep in, and set my stuff down in my room.

My room wasn't that special, it was about 2-3 ft bigger than your normal room, and that included the closet. To the right of my bed that was on the left side of the room, was small desk fused to the wall that had a shelf on top of the desk with 3 drawers in the side. To the right of the desk was a window that was about 3 feet by 2 ft that looked out to the backyard and the hills behind it. To the right of the window where the right wall was, was the closet that could be opened by pulling on the handle towards you. In there was no clothes, but just a mirror that was just as tall as me and about 2 ft wide.

This was my room, the room that I'd be staying in for however long my "Adventure" would probably last.

Starting to get comfortable in my room, I'd put my cloak in the empty closet, stand the Red Queen in one of the the corners, took off my boots and put them to the side of the door, and just lay down on my new bed. It was a lot more comfortable than the one in the hotel, so sleeping is gonna be amazing here.

This was my new room, it didn't have that dark murky feeling of it being stuffy or very grandiose because it was in a mansion, but it felt like home to me.

Taking out my necklace that was given to me by my mother, I looked at it for a bit before grasping it tightly in my hand.

I was once again thanking her for this last gift that was given to me. Not wanting to take the cowards way out, I'll fight until I die or until old age.

Getting up from my bed, I'd head towards the bathroom and take a shower before everyone else and head to sleep early. It looked about night time anyways, so I should be able to wake up normally.

After my shower, I'd head back into my room. Not seeing everyone else yet since they're still unpacking, I went to sleep in my new bed, in the new mansion that my party lived in, in this town where everyone knew that I was a demon, in this backwards fantasy world…

I would wake up probably 1-2 hours later by Aqua's screaming. Not wanting to check up on her and see if everything was alright, I fell back asleep.

It wouldn't be long that the spirits in this house would soon appear and haunt us, this would all happen as soon as I heard Kazuma's scream in the middle of the night, 3-4 hours later.

Reference:

1 - Rainbow Six: Siege, Bandits Bio.

2 - Peter Griffin's Bunker Busting Mega Ultra Super M-80 Firecrackers.


	19. Exorcisms and Unexpected Guests

Waking up for the 2nd time tonight by someones scream, I would go and check on why that person was screaming.

Since I was pretty cranky from not getting enough sleep, anything that would jump out at me would probably be punched.

Walking around the hallways, this mysterious feeling of being watched was back and this time it sent a chill up my spine. Noticing this, I turned around quickly to see what was there, but was met with emptiness. Since it was in the middle of the night and the candles were dim, I couldn't see much, but I could almost feel the presence of something lurking here.

Hey, you feel that too don't you?

 _Yeah, it's a spirit, but there's multiples threads of energy spread throughout the mansion, hard to tell where the source is._

Alright now might be the time to use DT, not gonna take the chance of going out without a weapon…

 _Just remember, you don't have much time to use the Trigger, find the source and take it out fast._

Focusing on all the demonic energy that was building up inside, I used DT for the first time. The top half of my body glowed blue, my Demon Arm was pulsating with energy and the spirit version of Vergil's DT form (I guess?) appear above me as he had Yamato in an integrated sheathe in his left arm.

Alright, let's find this spirit fast.

I ran towards the room that Kazuma was in and burst through the door, the room was empty.

Any trace?

 _It's not much, but I can see subtle traces of spirit energy from this room leading out._

So we just missed them then.

I dashed out of the room and back into the hallway where I search frantically for anything that was out of the ordinary. I would soon heard footsteps heading towards us on the opposite side of the hallway and stop.

I summoned the Yamato on my Demon Arm not knowing whether or not if it was the spirit, but was mistaken when I heard a yell...

"There you are, you damn spirit!" A voice called out, it sounded like Aqua's voice, "Time to face the music! This is what you get for stealing the precious nectar of the Goddess Aqua! 'Purification'!"

For the most part I was glad to see Aqua since she could find and make easy work of the spirits that are here, but that wasn't the case this time…

I felt a burning sensation as if I was being burned alive, it was the worst feeling I've ever had in my entire lifetime. It felt so painful, I let out a shriek of pain as I was on the ground in pain…

 _Ahhhh!_

The blue glow that was on me was no longer there, the power coming from my Demon Arm was dimmed, and the Yamato that fell to the ground disappeared, went back into my arm

I was on the ground, no longer feeling the burning sensation, but was trying to recover from the pain…

I heard footsteps come up to me as I was in the ground, "Ah! Oh, it's just Tsukiyo...what are you doing on the ground? You know you shouldn't be sleeping here…" Aqua said as she and Darkness came to me

"Aqua…." I asked in a weak voice, "Did you just try and purify a blue figure in the hallway?" I had a hunch that this might be the case…

"Yeah! It was that spirit who was doing all the possessing right? I think I got him good since it's presence is almost gone!" Aqua said in a happy tone as if she saved everyone from the spirits

With my dimmed out Demon Arm, I grabbed her shirt and headbutted her as hard as I could

"OW! What the hell!? Is that how you thank someone for saving everyone in this mansion from evil spirits!? I should purify you for laying a hand on a goddess!" Aqua said as she was pissed

"That blue figure was me you idiot! I wasn't the spirit haunting this mansion!" I said with amount of the strength that I had at the moment, which wasn't very much right now…

We soon heard more scream come from another part of the mansion, Aqua being the rabid purificator she was, ran over to where the screams were leaving me and Darkness behind

Not wanting to waste time in leaving her friends, Darkness grabbed my left arm and slung it over her own as she tried to bring me to where Aqua ran off to.

Hey…..you still there?

 _Barely...we need to put some kind of leash in her for when she does shit like this…_

I doubt that'll work…

 _Yeah, you're right...let's kill her off_

As much as I want to right now because of the pain she put us in, I'd like to but we need to take care of the spirits first...

As soon the three of us got to where Aqua ran off to, all I could see was an open door where Aqua was holding her face while Kazuma and Megumin looked shocked…

I wanted to ask what happened, and really didn't at the same time but it seemed that Darkness beat me to it and asked anyways.

After explaining what had happened and the spirits that were chasing them in the form of dolls, the thought of spirits taking control of dolls and trying to scare/kill you sent a chill up my spine.

I never liked the movie Annabelle or Chucky, so I guess I would've pissed myself if the real life equivalent showed up in the mansion and tried the same thing. After Aqua had healed her face back to 100% and decided to go on a purification rampage. She may be rabid when it comes to unholy stuff, but at times like these where she wants to take care of all of them by herself, she finally earns the title of 'not being useless'

Not wanting to get into more pain from Aqua's purifying and accidentally become a liability, I would have Darkness drop me off at my room and leave Aqua to ghostbusting.

Morning came in a short amount of time, and Kazuma and Aqua would head into the guild early morning to report about the spirits that were living in this mansion.

Meanwhile, Me and Vergil tried to recover from feeling like we got burned alive by Aqua's 'Purification' last night...

By the time I woke up, I felt sore all over. My Arm glow was brighter than last night, but was still dim compared to normal…

Seriously, why does all the bad shit have to happen to me…

 _I told you already, it's because you're like a magnet to them…_

I struggled to get up from bed as my body was just in constant pain. As I tried to get off of my bed and stand up, I fell to my knees and had a hard time getting up. Using Snatch to grab my sword and use it as a cane, I got up from the ground and hobbled my way to the bathroom where I'd get ready for the day…

By the time I finished washing up and hobbling my way downstairs, Megumin and Darkness would wake up soon after and join me in the living room.

It was just morning and I already felt like not leaving the mansion because of the pain. I would've loved to have something to eat in the meantime while we waited for Kazuma and Aqua to get back, but because we just moved into the mansion yesterday, there was no food in the kitchen.

When I Had enough strength to go get my food, I'd plan on going to the market and buy some food, spices, and seasoning, if they had any. If we going to live in this mansion with a 40 mil eris debt, then I'm gonna save a lot of money for when we have to pay it back or if one of them tries to steal some.

I head back into the living room and just laid back on the sofa that was near the fireplace, next to my bed, this was the most comforting thing to lay in.

It wouldn't be long before Megumin and Darkness came down from sleeping and notice me being lazy in pain on the couch, did they question it? No, no they did not, and I was glad that they didn't…

Using the strength that I wanted to save up for they day to actually move my head, I looked towards them and noticed that they had casual clothes compared to the stuff they usually wear.

Well, Darkness had some casual wear which was her edgy, all black, Rolling Stones song taken too literal(1) attire. Megumin on the other hand has the same dress on that she always has, but just without her copyrighted hat or cloak.

Soon after, Kazuma and Aqua would come in the mansion looking guilty as they can be. Did I want to ask questions? No, not really…

Moving my head back into the comfortable position it was for the past 3 minutes, Kazuma and Aqua would come tell us to gather near the table, "I can't do that sadly, my body's still in pain and it hurts to do anything so you'll just have to speak loud enough for me to hear it…" I said.

I guess my request was actually taken seriously because they all walked a bit towards the couch where I was, and listened to what Kazuma had to say…

After hearing the story of a lazy goddess not doing her job right and causing problems for no good reason, it seems like we frauded our way into getting this mansion. The agent doesn't seem to mind the fact that the problems on this house was caused by us since Aqua drove them out, but wants us to stay so the image doesn't get worse…

I mean, with us living in here I think that the value of the mansion just bottomed out really quick, so good luck trying to sell it we leave, cause no one's gonna want to buy it after.

The only 2 conditions of living in the mansion though, was to talk about our "adventurers" when we're eating or doing nothing. Seems strange but nothing too much to handle, I hope.

The other condition on the other hand is to clean out a tomb that was near the backyard. That seemed a bit out of the ordinary but, I wouldn't be the one doing the job since I was still to weak to do so.

Surprisingly, Wiz came over to check in how things were going for us. She seemed a bit better compared to yesterday when Aqua nearly purified her.

Wish I could say the same to me…

"Good Morning Tsukiyo! Are you alright? You seem very weak at the moment…" Wiz questioned, "Don't worry about me, Nearly got purified by Aqua for being mistaken for a spirit haunting the house, but I'm still sort of alive so it's all good I guess." I said back, as I was still lazing around on the couch…

"If you're looking for Kazuma, he's in the backyard cleaning a tomb. I'd show you, but everything hurts so…" I said, as I didn't move an inch from my spot. Megumin would soon come over and show Wiz where he was.

After Wiz and Megumin left to the backyard, it was just me and Darkness alone, again…

Not wanting to trigger another flag that will start more shit, I decided to close my eyes and take a nap...even though it was about 50 minutes after I woke up because why the fuck not…

I couldn't go to sleep faster than I was trying to at the moment, and yet Darkness asked me a question before I could get drowsy, "Are you okay?" She asked, not wanting to escalate things and make things between us progress I replied with "No not really, I'm in some pain, so I'm gonna take a short nap to take my mind off of it. Wake me up when we head to the Guild for some breakfast…"

This should be enough for her not to bother me, the mention of pain and getting my mind off it should encourage her to not talk to me and let me be in peace…

A knock could be heard in the door when I tried to take my nap….son of a bitch, who's trying to ruin my day?

Darkness who was sitting on the table decided to get the door, since she was the only one here…

As soon as I heard the door open and Darkness greet whoever was on the door, I heard Darkness call out to me, "Um, Tsukiyo I think it's for you…"

"Come on, kid! Get off your lazy ass and do something before I kidnap blondey here!" A familiar voice from the front doors said.

Oh come on, not today…

I tried to get myself up from the couch as I heard that familiar tone of sarcastic carelessness come from the door. As I headed towards the door, Kosuke was there looking all around the inside of the house as he stood in the entrance, and it seemed that he had a small small-ish case with him.

"Oh man, this place is pretty nice...Oh man, you look like shit! What, did blondey already suck you dry last night?" Kosuke said as he started to chuckle to himself, Darkness though…

"W-What are you s-s-suggesting that I did to T-t-tsukiyo last night!? I'm a Crusader! I've n-n-never do something that indecent to a comrade of mine!" She said as she was getting flustered from his assumptions, "Haha, very funny…" I said sarcastically…

"This is no laughing matter Tsukiyo! I'd never do that to you!" She really needs to learn sarcasm….

"Oh don't worry, I will definitely NOT spread rumors of you and Tsuki-boi getting comfortable with each other last night, Definitely not…" Kosuke said with more sarcasm than me

"Oh thanks, that's exactly what I need right now. Not the fact that my teammates are borderline useless and will sometimes do things stupider than me, no but this, this is exactly what I need! Thank you Kosuke, I really needed that…" More sarcasm thrown at him as I said that.

"Don't encourage his behavior Tsukiyo!" Darkness said, Oh hey, I think she can understand sarcasm…"Ugh, To think that a random stranger and Tsukiyo would take situation like this so lightly...and gang up on my like this…it's...ha...ha…." She tried to say seriously as she was starting to blush and pant, well here we go again…

Although, I was sort of used to this type of thing from Darkness, which is really sad, I know, Kosuke on the other hand is busting his ass laughing at what he experienced firsthand

"Oh my fucking god….is she serious!?" He said as he was now kneeled on the ground holding his stomach from laughter, "Did she really say that!?"

Yes, she did. It was nothing new, but that itself was bad enough…

Did I make a mistake of sort of liking her and having her sort of like me while having it slowly develop? Yup, major mistakes were made. How I undo this, please...

I was now next to Kosuke who was still on his knees laughing, but was slowly coming back to his senses as he stood back up, "Oh man, kid. I've gotta hand it to you...You really got it well compared to most guys around here, I'm starting to feel a bit jealous…" He said in a playful tone

"Ever heard the phrase 'Don't judge a book by it's cover'?, yeah well, it's all bad from my perspective…" I said as start to remember literally everything, minus the Beldia fight, and get 'Nam flashbacks

"I should say the same to you too kid, You guys didn't do so bad against that headless horseman. You guys even killed him, a Demon Army Boss, not an easy feat you know." He brought up, I call that one sort of bullshit since it was caused by one of our teammates.

"Anyways, why are you here? You said you needed me for something right? What is it?" I asked since I just wanted to get back to being a lazy sack of shit on the couch…

"Oh right. Well, this is gonna have to a bit private, mano a mano. Your girlfriend will have to wait a bit before having more fun with you." He said with a sly tone on the end of his sentence…

I just shook my head and started to walk with him. Whatever he's planning, it might be really good or really shit.

"Alright, I'll be right back…" I said as I walked out of the mansion and started walking a good 10-20 feet away from it with Kosuke.

As soon as he stopped, he turned towards me and tossed the case towards me, "Catch!" He said.

I managed to catch it with my left arm that was free while I dug my sword into the dirt with my right arm.

"Open it, see what's inside…" He said in a suspicious tone, not wanting to take any chances I laid the case in the ground and opened it pointing away from me. Since nothing came out, spilled, or exploded I considered it safe to look into it and was met with a a lot of surprise.

I couldn't believe my eyes, there was a double barreled revolver in here. But more importantly, it was the Blue Rose.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing since this would be impossible to make. Even in modern time earth, it would be impossible and inefficient since you'd need to take the concept of a double barrel shotgun and flip it sideways and make it 3x smaller.

The barrels of the revolver was a perfect coat of silver with the top barrel having engravings of smooth curves heading towards the base of the gun and the bottom barrel almost clean looking with a blue rose engraving in front of trigger guard and cylinder.

The grip of the gun had a clean wooden grip that seemed to be carved to fit the hands of anyone holding them.

I looked back to Kosuke to ask him how he got these, but was now looking at 2 pistols pointing at me sideways side by side.

He was able to get Ebony and Ivory, and even though he didn't have it on him right now, there was a good chance that he had the Coyote shotgun too.

"Pretty neat huh?" He said as he took his pistols off me and slid them behind his back

"Where did you get these? This should be next to impossible to get, let alone create" I asked, I was genuinely curious on how he got these since there is probably no one except me and Kosuke who knows about the DMC franchise.

"I got them from another reincarnated. He has the ability to make any weapon he can think of as long as he has enough mana for it. The only reason why he's not insanely popular with these creations is because this stuff is all black market ware. You get him the money, he gets you the weapon." He said as he was fiddling with Ivory while pointing it to the side with 2 hands like a soldier.

He started firing off about 5 rounds before going into a more relaxed stance and putting Ivory away, "Well what are you waiting for? Test that baby out and see what it can do." He said as he looked at me with a smile.

I took the gun out and aimed it to the side of me where a tree was. It felt good the way the ergonomic grip melded with my hand.

Putting both hands in the gun since I have no idea what the recoil will be like, I took a deep breath and fired off 3 shots.

 ** _Bang! Bang! Bang!_** ( _Pull my Devil Trigger!_ (2) Sorry, couldn't help it -Konran)

The sound of the gun sounded meaty and heavy, the shots that landed on the tree had 6 decent sized holes on it, the recoil was just as I expected, a bit much for me to handle, but my gun glowed blue for 5 seconds before it stopped.

"Why'd it glow blue?" I asked, I know that it wasn't a charge shot since the tree that I shot at wasn't on fire or exploded after I shot it, so this was something else.

"Oh right, here's the thing...The gun can have infinite ammo since it uses mana to regenerate the bullets inside the chamber. But only if you have mana, not sure how much it takes away..." Kosuke said as he put his hand on his chin as if he was trying to remember something.

Great, now I really have to increase my MP a lot if I want to use this along with the DT.

"Alright, well, that's all I wanted to show you. Keep the gun, it suits your cosplay pretty good." Kosuke said as he started walking away from the mansion.

"Hey, how much did this cost? Why are you giving it to me for free?" I said wondering why he'd go this far for me

"Don't worry about the cost, for the why...it's for you to hold onto when I come kick your ass to take it back!" He said as he finished his sentence with a laugh.

Since he was already too far to him anymore questions, I took the newly acquired Blue Rose, put it back it the case Kosuke brough it in, Dug my sword out of the ground, and walked back to the mansion.

It was at this time I realised the pain from last night had vanished and the glow on my arm returned to its original color.

When I opened the front door, Darkness was nowhere to be seen. Assuming that she went to go do something else, I headed to my room to put my weapons back and probably head to the Tavern for breakfast.

By the time I went back downstairs to go to the Tavern and get food, everyone else seemed to have come back from wherever they were and met up at the front door. Since I was still at the bottom of the stairs not noticed by the others yet, I had a small feeling that everything seemed natural when looking at all 4 of them with the exception of Wiz.

It's almost as if me being here wasn't really necessary but welcomed nonetheless. Part of me wonder what might've happened to those 4, if I wasn't here to begin with. If I hadn't tried to do stupid things and actually gone solo…

I started having this feeling of emptiness from within, similar to how I felt in the very beginning of my life here when I started living alone.

It was an uncomfortable feeling. I hated it so much, but didn't have an actual reason why I hated it…

Not wanting to make my emotions go even lower, I decided to forget what I was feeling for the moment and just head towards them and join them for breakfast.

By the time we finished eating our breakfast, the rest of the group would go on ahead of me and go back to the mansion. I on other hand, had to go grocery shopping for spices and seasoning, and food to cook when we were gonna run low on money, because 40 mil debt.

The 1st thing I'd need is spices and seasoning, for this I'd have to head to the Old Man's Farm way out in the forest and ask him how to get/grow different types of vegetables and herbs. Of course this took a lot more time for me to understand since I have zero skills in farming, but after an five hours of learning a handful of what can grow in the summer/spring period and how to grow them, I was given a couple of seeds for tomatoes, potatoes, peas, and carrots in a small pouch. He'd teach me another day on how to properly store them for the fall/winter since the vegetables can go bad easily since there's no fridges in this world.

For the main food, I'd have to go to the Tavern and ask the staff if they have an excess amount of food that they'd be willing to sell to me. Although it wasn't much that they sold me, it was still enough for me to use for 1 or 2 weeks. What they sold me was about 3 heads of cabbages from the harvest some time ago, a good chunk of meat from Pepe's brothers and sisters, some cucumber and corn, and a couple of knives from the chefs that learned that I was going to cook for the group when we were tight on money.

I'd have to carry the food that I bought from the Tavern in a bag of hide they had lying around, and sling it over my back. The knife's would be in a different carrying bag designed for knives that I would hold in my left hand.

I would soon head back to the mansion to drop all this off and start practicing means that I could do from experience both from the restaurant and from what my mom taught me.

It wasn't even 10 minutes before I saw Kazuma walking down the street, I would've called out to him to have him help me, but I saw him with Dust and some other guy looking suspicious while looking down an alleyway. Now wanting to get caught in more random bullshit, I just turned my head around and walked faster towards the mansion.

I would've like for today to end off on a good note and try out my first attempt on farming to see if I could do it right, but just like everyday, something had to ruin the day and make it shit…

(Sorry for the very late upload, things have been getting a bit more busy for me since I had to quit my job and soon start school in the next 7 hours as of this time. So there's a chance that I might have to go down to 1 upload per week because of school, but I hope that won't be the case. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed these 2 chapters, I had to cut out a bit of content from the LN and rewrite things to make it fit, so I hope it's not as bad as I think it is.

P.S, sorry for any noticable mistakes on these last 2 chapters, didn't do enough proof read from time restraints, a.k.a its 1:41 am and I have to wake up in 6 hours...)

Reference:

1 - Rolling Stones: Paint it Black

2 - Casey Edwards: Devil Trigger feat. Ali Edwards (DMC5 theme song)


	20. Godlike Food and Killing Intent

When I made it back to the mansion, it started to snow lightly.

The cold hell has begun...If the only source of heat in this house is the fireplace and my sword then this is gonna be a real problem since the cold sucks. Oh wait, I can't plant the seeds out in the back if it's gonna snow…

Dammit, just when...actually today was never going good aside from the Blue Rose, so today is just normal I guess…

But the mood seemed to turn around a bit when I entered the mansion and saw a small box of Ruby Red lobsters sitting on the table. The girls were standing around the table and it was Aqua who noticed me near the doorway and called out to me.

"Ah! Tsukiyo's back! Hey Tsukiyo! Check it out, Darkness' folk sent a crate of Lobsters to us since we're going to be living here. It's almost like a welcoming gift! This is Snow Crimson lobsters, the top tier type of lobsters. They even sent a top class wine bottle for us to enjoy! But, I might as well hog it myself..." Aqua said as she and Megumin started to drool from the Lobsters.

I hope that we could eat the lobsters as they are right now cause cooking lobsters or any type of gourmet foods is waaay above my cooking skills. All I really know is breakfast, lunch, snack, and a bit of standard dinner.

Since the lobsters were still in the crate that it came in, I had to help set up the table where we laid plates from the kitchen and grabbed a couple of silverware.

The lobster probably would taste good if we had rice, which is what just remembered and forgot to grab goddammit, me and my shit memory. Oh well, in this weather growing rice would be impossible to do, so this might have to wait for….a couple of months…

As I mentally flipped a table from the season, Kazuma walked and was greeted by Aqua who told him the same thing that was told to me about 10 minutes ago.

"What? Really!?" Kazuma asked as he looked excited to eat the lobsters. I couldn't blame him, even I'm starting to feel a bit giddy from the fact that I'm about to eat rich people food.

Suck it rich greedy CEO's of Japan! I'm working a dangerous job that might cost me my life and I can eat the foods just as good as you!

Wait, this is top tier lobsters and Wine sent by Darkness' parents….something the rich can probably afford…

I guess my orphan and outlaw theory is out the window. So that's just leaves the Rich daughter theory. I'd include the P.O.W theory too, but her age is all the proof I need to debunk it…

I tried to not show any suspicion when I peeked over towards Darkness, who was sitting right next to the eager Megumin. She seemed a bit uneasy, when they mentioned "top tier" and "Top class"

I looked away back to the food before I got caught. Aqua was the first one to break one of the lobster's limbs and slurp up the meat inside.

She was smiling brightly and giggling happily, "Oooh, it's so good!" Aqua exclaimed, since each of us had a wine glass, Aqua opened the wine bottle and happily poured enough for all of us, including Megumin who might've been a bit too young for alcohol.

When I broke open a lobster limb and ate the meat inside….I felt strange….like all negative emotions from within that was built up from the past 6-7 years was slowly vanishing and being replaced with positivity...Is this what happiness feels like?

Before I knew what happened, I started to tear off more limbs and eat the lobster quicker than the rest of the guys. They seemed to be surprised from my reactions since I was showing no signs of slowing down.

By the time I finished my portion of the lobster, I regained my senses...Ok, on a serious note, aside from happiness, is this what drugs feel like?

Not wanting to remember what I just did, but at the same time wanting to remember the godlike taste of the lobster I ate, I downed my glass of wine and swallowed my pride as a man…"I need more lobster…"

 _Oh boy, doesn't that sound familiar…_

Shhh, just let me enjoy the drugs coursing inside my stomach…

My thoughts were interrupted as I heard someone stand up from the table, it was Kazuma.

He seemed to have an expression of dedication on his face as he stared at his plate, but wasn't finished with his portion yet.

Darkness seeing his expression, she seemed to be worried for a second as she asked him, "Are you okay Kazuma? Have you never drank before? or is lobster not good enough?"

Kazuma switched gears from serious to general happiness as he told us, "Oh no, the lobster was great, the best I've had in my life. It's just that I've already drunk earlier with Keith and the guys today, don't want to overdose it and go too far. I'll drink some tomorrow, that's if if there's still some left tomorrow…" We all stared at the Aqua as she was too busy drinking the wine from the bottle. When she noticed us, she asked "What?"

Because I saw him earlier looking down the alleyway suspiciously, I didn't buy his story. But, if I say that out loud, he's going to deny it and make a scene. It might be better to let this one go…

Darkness for once, instead of saying something stupid, masochistic, or just plain wrong, actually smiled an innocent smile at Kazuma who was about to knock out early…

...Who is this normal person? Why can't we have this person instead of the one we have when we go to quests?? I'd gladly acknowledge any feelings I have foe her if this was the person had everyday, but the fact that she isn't normal makes me want to repress those feelings by either drinking or just flat out ignoring them…

Before Kazuma could leave, I asked him "If you're not gonna eat the rest of your lobster, you mind if I have them? Wouldn't want to waste them…"

Kazuma looked back at the plate he had, he breathed in silently and swallowed, "Sure...you could have them, I wouldn't want to waste them either…" He said with a bit of pain and hesitation…

Yeah, with the godlike food that we had it'd hurt to have someone else eat the portion you were supposed to have, he's hiding something no doubt…

About 10 minutes after Kazuma left, we finished our food and wine, and went on our way to head to sleep. Before I could do that, Darkness came up to me and asked a question, "Hey Tsukiyo, Who was that guy from earlier today?" I considered whether telling her the truth or not since I'm not sure about Kosuke's reputation in this world. Meh, he can handle himself…

"The guy from earlier is just like me in a sense. He's also Demon, but I don't think he has any plans on killing anyone, or being associated with the Demon Army Boss. Why?" I asked, "Well, you seemed a bit more natural towards him rather than the rest of us, so I was wondering how close you guys were…" Darkness said, I would have answered her honestly this time, "Believe me, the way I talk to you guys and Kosuke are the same, I won't filter anything out whether it be swears or hate unless it sounds like I'm going too far. Anything else?"

This seemed to be enough for Darkness since she just shook her head and left to go her room, I would do the same as soon as the dishes were in the sink for me to clean tomorrow.

I would've been the first one to bathe and head to sleep like always since I didn't want to deal with any bullshit in the night, but it seems that someone else already took it before me. Since I was tired from learning about farmings for dummies, hauling the food from the tavern, and getting slightly drowsy from the wine, I decided to sleep first and take my bath early morning when everyone was still asleep.

I headed back for to my room and drifted off to a place far away from this world so I couldn't be disturbed…

For the most part, my sleep went off in a hitch. I was enjoying the rest that I was getting and was at true peace, until some monkey started to screech in the middle of the night, "Hey Everyone! Come quick, we have an intruder! There's a freak in the mansion!"

Opening my bloodshot eyes from the 3-4 hours of sleep that I had, I was thoroughly pissed off.

Without even noticing I seemed to have turned on DT cause all I wanted to do was kill whatever what was ruining my sleep and get back to my bed.

With my eyes half closed, and my mood at 'pure shit', something was going to die, and it was going to be really quick.

By the time I reached where all the screaming and yelling was at, I asked "What...the fuck...is going on…" In a tired voice that could kill.

It was at this time that Kazuma also reached where we were at with nothing but a towel, I didn't care for this, I just wanted a good night's rest…

"Ah! Kazuma, Tsukiyo look! A villian got stopped by my barrier trap and can't move now!...Hey, why do the both of you look like villains too?" Aqua asked as she was now not screeching at the top of her lungs. "Hey, Tsukiyo's the only one who looks like a villain! He's glowing and glaring at us evilly, that's not normal! but, then again he wasn't normal to begin with…" Kazuma said, I'd get him tomorrow when I was full rested.

What was in the small barrier trap was a demon looking girl who was wearing barely anything that covered her up. Kazuma looked at her and said, "Hey, what's a succubus doing here?"

"When I exorcised all those spirits yesterday, I placed powerful barrier around the house so nothing could bother us when we were here. I felt a reaction in the barrier and decided to check it out, and I caught a succubus! Because succubi are more attracted to men, I guess she was either going for one of you guys. But no worries! I'm gonna exorcise this succubi and take her out!" Aqua said as she was preparing herself to purify the succubus

This was all I needed to hear to take it out without any justification, "No, let me kill it...It will pay for interrupting my sleep…" I said, as I summoned Yamato in my Demon Arm.

I started walking up to the succubi and was about to kill it with the Yamato, before Kazuma stepped in the way and took up a fighting pose.

"Out of the way, It's gonna die…" I said as started to point the Yamato at Kazuma, He didn't move or respond to what I said.

Aqua would be next to say something and not get a response from him, "Kazuma what are you doing? She's a devil, No Offense Tsukiyo, she's trying to steal your energy!"

He still didn't listen to what we said, Aqua soon took her natural goddess tone and said to him "Are you really gonna defy your goddess? Get out of the way, aside from Tsukiyo and Wiz a bit, I can't let any demon go unpurified...Last chance to step aside weakling…"

He still didn't budge, and it was at this time that Darkness came from the same hallway with her hair wet and her sleep clothes, probably just as pissed off as I was.

"Hey Aqua! Kazuma might be in the succubus' control right now! He's been acting weird lately, saying things about a dream and settings! Damn imposter controlling my comrade and making me face such humiliation...I'll kill you!" Darkness said in a pissed off tone, for once we can actually agree on something...

Kazuma at this time was surrounded. Me, Aqua, and Megumin were in front of him, while Darkness was behind…

He motioned for the Succubi to leave, as his fighting stance grew more aggressive. It was time to start the fight…

"Alright Kazuma bring it on! Looks like we're gonna have to fight seriously...Don't blame me for anything that happens in the next ten minutes! You brought this upon yourself!" Aqua shouted at him as he let the succubi go.

She, along with Megumin and Darkness would get into a fight stance...

"Bring it ON!" Kazuma said, he leapt into the air thinking that he could have some advantage to us on the ground.

 _Naive…_

Without thinking, I made the Yamato disappear and used Snatch to grab Kazuma's neck and bring him close to my face. I looked at him dead in the eyes, as he now realised how screwed he was.

What I did next may be considered a bit much, but at this point, he probably deserved it. With all the force that I could muster up, I turned Kazuma around, Grabbed him by the waist and started to suplex him 2x and leap in the air high enough to do a spinning suplex that could damn near kill anyone…(1)

I'm not sure whether or not If I heard a couple of cracks or snaps during that combo, but all I know is that my frustration was gone along with the succubi who I still wanted to kill. Not wanting to waste anymore MP, I turned off DT and headed back into my room.

"Hey Aqua, go heal him. I'm not sure how much force I put into my strength, but all I know is that I didn't hold much back...goodnight." I said as I passed Aqua and Megumin who were staring and poking at the non moving Kazuma...he'll be fine…

Getting back into my room and my bed, I went to sleep one more time. I wasn't disturbed anymore that night, and slept soundly.

I woke up the next morning feeling completely rejunived for the most part, I, for once, was in a good mood. I looked out the window and smiled to myself looking at the beautiful scenery of the morning.

When I left my room and headed to the bathroom, I just remembered that I needed to take a bath since I wasn't able to yesterday.

Taking the time to make sure I could take my bath without any interruptions, I would make sure to grab the heaviest thing I could find and placed it in front of the door. The heaviest thing I saw sadly was a mop rack that janitors in this world would probably use. Even though it had wheels and could be moved easily, anyone who opens the door should notice this and decide not to come in if they had common sense…..On second thought, is there any rope here to tie the doorknob to the wall and make sure NO ONE can enter?

I looked around and saw no rope to ensure no one would come in, so sadly I'd have to hope that one one comes in when they noticed the mop rack. If they came in anyways I'd have to shout at them.

I looked at the clothes rack and saw that there was no clothes placed in any of the baskets. So in theory no one should be here. I started to undress myself and place my clothes in one of the baskets.

When I went to the door where the actual bath area was, I almost tripped on something that nearly made me trip and die. It was the sign that would be placed on the doorknob when it was in use.

Looking at the sign a little bit closer, the piece of string that was on the back of it was in two pieces, so whoever was in here yesterday probably didn't notice it drop when they left.

I placed the sign on the sink next to the door for later, since it was easy fix to do. I had my towel around my waist and opened the door the bath.

My day was going so well, I got a good night's rest even with the interruption, and I saw a great scene from looking out the window...so why was Darkness sitting in the bath staring off into the distance…

Without wasting a second, I closed the door quickly before she knew I was there. What kind of sick fuck was making these situations come to real life? (*Maniacal Laughing* -Konran)

I have two choices now, Do I escape quietly and wait for her to finish or do I try and- Of course I'm gonna get the fuck out, you think I'm gonna get caught by her from a stupid reason!?

I walked back to the close rack and put my clothes back on tried to quietly open the door and escape...until the fucking door made a creaking noise comparable to a Dank Memers REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"Huh!? Who's there?" Darkness asked, so close and yet so damn far…

I tried to sound convincing so she didn't suspect me of peeking on her, "Oh Darkness you're in here? My bad, I'll leave you by yourself…" I said, as I closed the door "normally"

"Oh wait, I'm already done here so you don't have to wait long, sorry…" She said as I heard sounds of water splashing, I closed the door at this point not wanting to take any chances…

After 5 minutes of waiting, the door finally opened and Darkness came out with her normal clothes while her hair was still wet, "Sorry about that, it seems I spaced out for a bit…" She said apologetically. She seemed a bit shocked when looked outside and saw the daylight, "Oh, it's already morning…" she said to herself…

"Hold up, let me see your eyes for a sec…" I asked in a serious tone, she was surprised at this and started to blush when I put my left hand in her right cheek and made her face turn towards me.

I saw dark shadow under her eyes, and sort of red-ish eye color. Was how long was she in the bath?

I grabbed her hands and put them up to me and saw that they were very wrinkled, like a fucking raisin type of wrinkled.

"How long were you in the bath? Answer me truthfully." I asked in a serious tone, she looked the other way and said, "It was only about half our to one hour I think…"

I chopped the top of her head when she lied, "Don't bullshit me, you have dark shadows under your eyes and your hands are fucking raisins. You were here the whole night were you?"

She held her head in pain as I said, but started to pant when the pain was gone. I'm just about to headbutt her with her fetish…

I sighed, not wanting to escalate things further, I just told her while I went into the bath, "Look, I don't know why you were in here for the whole night and I'm sure as hell not going to ask why, but don't stay up the entire night while staying in one position for a long time. You can die from that…"

She seemed look a bit sad while looking down from me saying that, as I closed the door, got undressed again, and went into the bath.

I would soon take my bath, before hearing the door open and close, "Ok, let me be very clear. The moment you open this door, I'm gonna bash your skull in the wall. We have Aqua who can heal you so I won't hold back." I said in an annoyed voice, the door didn't open, but Darkness started to talk to me from beyond the other side of the wall that separated us from seeing each other…

"I won't come in and be a disturbance, but just hear me out a little. I was humiliated by Kazuma last night when he was being controlled by the succubus, and although it did feel a bit exciting, it felt uncomfortable and too weird…also a bit disturbed" She said in the a different tone from normal, but similar to what I heard back in the cabin when the runaway noble daughter was mentioned to us.

Seeing that this was a situation where she wanted to be truthful instead of being "herself", I responded with ,"Ok, then answer some things for me: Wouldn't humiliation be one of those things you enjoy? What's with the tone your setting right now?, and why are you telling me these things, wouldn't it be better to talk to Aqua and Megumin about this? Of course, they're probably gonna go for Kazuma and beat him just as bad as last night like I did to him, so why me?"

Darkness said seriously "I am still a girl after all, Just because I act the way I act doesn't mean that I don't have normal emotions and feelings like any normal girl would, but for why I'm telling you this is might be because I feel a bit more comfortable talking to you after our adventures together…"

"Ok, 1. you are way far from a normal girl, and not in a good way, so that's just bullshit" I said in a sarcastic tone, "And besides, what Adventures? Most of our "Adventures" always end up in a failure with us nearly running for our fucking lives from some random bullshit that had to happen at the wrong time at the wrong place, and if it's not random bullshit, then it from one of you guys who caused it..." I said as I vented out a bit from experience

Darkness chuckled lightly, "You were always the one with the sharpest tongue out of all of us, even surpassing Kazuma...But I guess that might be your own way of showing that you care..."

"Take it as you may, I say what I want to say regardless of others opinion. I stopped giving a shit about 1 or 2 years ago…" I said as I hopped into the bath leaned back.

"Alright, I'll get out of your way and gets some sleep." Darkness said as she went to leave, but before she could…

"Hey, Don't tell Kazuma that I said this, but for your information, I saw Kazuma eyeing a suspicious shop down the alleyway yesterday in town with two other guys. So the succubus incident probably was his fault to begin with." I said with a tone of not giving a shit...

I heard the door close as I continued to relax in the tub with no interruptions. Man, I love blackmail material…

By the time I finished relaxing in the tub, I got out, drained the water, and put my clothes back on. When I looked outside the sky was a bright blue instead of a lighter shade of yellow/pink.

Now that I was fully rested and fresh out of the bath, I decided to head down to the living room and get something to eat for breakfast, if we even have anything…

As I was heading to the living to get something to eat, I passed by Aqua and Megumin who were sneakily watching something outside while they were pressed near the side of the door that lead out to the backyard.

I walked up to them and tried to ask what they were doing, but they shut me up and pulled me towards the side and pointed to what they were looking at outside.

I looked at what they were pointing at and saw Kazuma sweeping the tombstone that the agent told us to clean. A couple of feet behind him was Darkness in casual clothes. I wonder if she told them about what I told her earlier…

"I don't trust Kazuma being that close to Darkness, he might do something lewd to her again." Aqua said, "I wonder if the succubus still has any control over him lingering inside…", I guess Darkness hasn't told these guys then about the truth…

Ignoring the situation entirely, I resumed my walk to go to the kitchen to eat something until…

"Destroyer Alert! Destroyer Alert! The moving fortress is heading towards this town! All adventurers come to the guild with your all equipment and gear on! Citizens in the town, please evacuate and head somewhere safe!" A voice that sounded like Linda's boomed in the air as a siren was also heard.

I ran towards my room to get my gear, which was just my sword, the newly acquired Blue Rose, and my cloak. You know now that I think about it, because my cloak was the only type of armour I have, I think this is why I was getting hurt easily.

I'll make a mental note to to buy some lightweight armour later on, but for the moment I had to head to the guild and meet up with everyone to do something about the Destroyer…

Even though I know that a destroyer is coming for us, I'm still not sure what a 'Destroyer' actually is. This wasn't explained too well, so I guess I'm gonna get surprised when I see what this looks like for the first time...

Reference:

1 - https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DXOb55tXDIQYved=2ahUKEwj60fuUiI_dAhWaHjQIHYkoAYsQwqsBMAB6BAgIEAUusg=AOvVaw1DqPRFfEXCBQOZU4eY-NkV - skip to 3:06, Alto Angelo Devil Trigger, a.k.a golden armour boi combo, a.k.a Turning into Zangeif from Street Fighter


	21. A Nuke with legs and The Yamato

By the time I headed back into the living room, where Aqua and Megumin were freaking the fuck out, I found Kazuma who was already ready to head into the guild, while Darkness was somewhere I guess.

I still don't know why they were freaking out, guessing that it was from the destroyer, yeah no shit me, I decided to ask Kazuma about what it was.

"Hey, what's this destroyer they keep talking about, we never got a real explanation for it have we?" I asked, Kazuma turned towards me and just gave me even more vague news about it which is something heading towards us that destroys literally anything in front of it like the name suggests.

"We can't use explosion magic either since it has a barrier protecting it." Kazuma said, it was at this time that I had 2 decisions: I can either join the efforts to head to the guild and do something about the destroyer, or get the fuck out of dodge and start a new life in a new town…

I started contemplating whether or not to start a new life and meet actual normal people who can probably be my teammates, but because I have no knowledge of life outside the walls from the titans(1), I mean, because I've only been here for a couple of months, I won't know where to go in general…

It was at this time that Darkness came from wherever she was at with a set of armour I've never seen before. Compared to her normal armour, this one looked a lot bulkier and sturdier. It had a detachable shield, which I doubt she'll use whatsoever, and a chainmail cape that was over the top in general and not needed. Since she was the crusader of the group, I bet that this was something she couldn't run away from, maybe it was for the Masochistic pain or the 1% good nature she had in her personality, but regardless she was ready for the destroyer.

"What are you guys doing? Get ready, we're going to be late for the battle! Going by your nature, you two would definitely go to the guild right?" Darkness said to both me and Kazuma.

Hey, don't assume that about me. If I seem diligent for one reason or another, just know it's because I'm cleaning up your guys' mess. Kazuma I bet would probably just get the he-

"What are you two doing standing around?" Kazuma said towards Aqua and Megumin, hold on what's he doing, "After living in this mansion and town for so long are you really going to abandon it in a time of need? Come on! We're going to be late!" Kazuma said as he opened the front door and started to head to the guild…

Am I missing something here? Kazuma's not the type of person to do something out of the goodness of his heart, so what's different this time? And besides, you've been living in this mansion for like 2 days, 2 DAYS! What attachment do we have!?

Not having a choice now, I headed towards the guild with everyone else and by the time we got there, literally all the adventurers were wearing some type of heavy armour or had professional looking weapons. So shit was getting really Real.

Kazuma was greeted by Dust and his teammates when we got here, and I would have to talk to Linda about what the Destroyer was, how low our chances for survival was, and see if the guild needed anything from me.

By the time I found her, she was talking to all the staff informing them of the situation. I waited for her to be done before asking my questions, "Oh Tsukiyo! Thanks goodness you're here. We need all the help we can get at this point. Is there something you need from me?" She asked, I asked her my questions and got my answers, but it was a lot more than I could handle.

The Destroyer was a mobile fortress that had a barrier and destroyed everything. Anything in its way would be obliterated, period. Everyone here needed to help out regardless of level, and there were no requirements. Our chances for survival was literally 5%, so that was great to hear. At this point, everyone in the town should've already been evacuated, including those 3-5 miles near the town.

The only thing she needed from me was to listen to the discussion and listen to any plans that could either stop this thing or try to escape and get as far away from this place as possible.

Yeah, this was looking bad. If we failed to do anything to stop it from getting close to us and this town, then we might as well die trying to escape.

At this time, Linda told me to regroup with my team since she was about to hold the speech for everyone. She soon stood on top of a table and spoke in a clear and loud voice for everyone to hear:

"Alright! Thank you everyone for gathering here, we will now start the emergency quest to repel the destroyer. There is no restrictions and all levels are welcome to help. If we fail to repel the Destroyer, the guild will notify everyone by the broadcast, and if that does happen, please get to safety and evacuate as far away from the town as you possibly can. Before we start the briefing, is there anyone here who doesn't know what a destroyer is?"

When Linda asked that, couple of people raised their hands, Kazuma included. She would soon tell us what the destroyer was but in more detailed form:

She started to explain what it was with the same words she used when I asked, but the more she went into details, the more she made it sound literally unbeatable. It had advanced magic to fight it against the Demon King's army in the shape of a spider, was lighter than it seemed, and way faster than a horse.

Since it had a barrier protecting it at all times from an advanced magic core, magic attacks were useless and because it was made of metal, arrows were useless too. We had catapults and other siege weapons, but because of the speed of the Destroyer, it was hard to anticipate for distance and boulder speed. The same type of equipment was on top of the fortress to counter anything heading towards it from the air being controlled by golems who were stationed there.

The reason for it's AWOL behavior is because the director inside the fortress is giving it orders to rampage the world. It will kill man or monster, go through any type of terrain, and any encounters from any town are given the order to get away from it, even if it means abandoning town and rebuilding.

It was the worst situation to deal with, but everyone considered this a "Natural Catastrophe."

"As we speak the fortress is heading towards us, so any plan or suggestion is helpful at this point." Linda said, after a couple of minutes of thinking, one person raised their hand and gave a suggestion of digging a giant hole and having it fall inside.

"This was already attempted, a certain place had gathered a lot of 'Elemental Masters' and used their powers to summon spirits to dig a giant hole in the ground and seal it with boulders. It worked for the most part, but the boulders were too late and the destroyer jumped out easily and wiped out the town..." Linda answered, The guild was still silent, and morale was low.

Another person asked about how the Demon King handles this, Linda answered with the fact that the Demon King's castle had a stronger barrier protecting it from the Destroyer, they aren't bothered enough to deal with the destroyer.

"Any other suggestions?" Linda said, no one was raising their hands and was just looking at each other.

As time went on, more ideas came to mind and all of them got shot down. Mounting the Destroyer? Nope, too fast to set up. Build a wall to block the destroyer (not trying to meme, that's an actual line in the LN but instead of a wall it's a barricade), nope uses logic and moves around. Magic and air attacks are not an option, and all attacks were fast.

We were thoroughly screwed. As much as I didn't want to admit it, running away seems like the only real option.

I sat down on a booth next to me, held my head, and thought to myself while blocking out all noises.

This is an impossible situation. If something was indestructible from the outside, then killing it from the inside should be the better solution, but we can't get near it or try and mount it. Our equipment is outdated, and useless because of the barrier, and it's too fast for any spells or projectiles. Making traps take too long, barricades are a waste of time, and nothing could hurt it.

We need more time for a better plan, but we don't have the privilege of time right now.

 _Aren't you forgetting something?_

I don't think so, but a this point any plan is useless in some way or another…

 _Am I really gonna have to spell it out for you?_

Spell what out?

 _The Yamato, use the Yamato!_

How's that gonna work? I don't have experience to use it against the something fast and protected by a barrier.

 _You don't, But I do..._

What are you planning?

 _Let me take control for a while and have me destroy the barrier. I have more experience with speed, combat, and usability with the Yamato. The Yamato can cut through anything, including the fabric of time itself. (2)_

"Even if that destroys the barrier, we won't' have enough firepower to put it down…" I accidentally said out loud.

Linda seemed to heard this and turn her head towards me and ask, "Destroy the barrier? You can destroy the Barrier!?" She said in a voice that still had hope in it, everyone had their attention towards me…

Shit...I _T R I G G E R E D_ a flag that might bite me in the ass.

"I might be able to destroy the barrier, but there's no guarantee that it'll work." I said, but that itself was enough to help make a plan that might be able to take down the Destroyer.

"Please Tsukiyo, tell us. It doesn't matter how far fetched it is. Any Plan is better than no plan." Linda said in a serious voice. I guess I don't have a choice.

"Ok. As of right now, I possess an ability that allows me to unleash my inner demon and get access to a powerful sword capable of cutting anything, including the fabric of time itself. There are only 2 problems. There is another person inside my arm only capable of pulling off something like that and the form I take will last about 5 minutes before my Mana depletes completely. I won't need to be close to the destroyer for him to pull it off, so I can stay at a distance and maybe take out the barrier. I haven't done this before, but this all depends on his ability and Mana usage…" After I was done speaking, it seemed that this was enough to get everyone cheering for some kind of plausible plan that could work or fail in less than 10 seconds.

"This could work, but it's also like you said, we won't have enough firepower to take it down…" Linda said, this would have brought down the mood, but someone suggested something that could work…

"What if we use the screw loose one…" Someone said, when other people heard this, it started to trend and was encouraged.

"Yeah, what if we use the screw loose…" "The screw loose is our savior!" "Where is screwy girl?"

"I'll gladly prove you all wrong if you guys keep doing that…" Megumin scowled as she was officially referred as 'The one with the screw loose' or 'Screwy Girl'. I felt like terrorist loli still fits better than screwy girl.

"Even if I managed to get one good shot in it might not be able to finish it off…" She said as her voice grew lower and lower by the time she finished her sentence.

"Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. We only have the one shot from Megumin, and that might not be enough…" I said as I laid back down on my seat.

"S-Sorry I'm late! I'm the owner of the magic item shop, and technically still an adventurer so Please let me help out too…" Wiz said as came into the Taverna and was panting from being out of breath.

I know she's a Demon Boss and all, but what can she do in a situation like this?

While I was thinking negatively by myself, everyone else on the other hand…

"It's the impoverished shop owner!" " The shop owner is here!" "Thank you for helping me out in my dreams…"

Ok, I'm definitely missing something here.

I asked around to get the bigger picture here, and apparently the shop owner who has a lot of bombs and other "useful" items was once a powerful archwizard before retiring and suddenly setting up shop here. But because her stuff was useless and expensive no one bought her stuff, so they only come to her just for HER.

Wiz went up to Linda who was greeted by her and told her the plan that we had for the moment.

"Hmm, I guess it'd be better for Megumin to aim for the legs, I know explosion magic too so I can aim for the other side amd immobilize it together. I think this should work in theory…" Wiz said, we had no other plans than this one so it was better than leaving the town in general and have it be destroyed just to rebuild it.

"Alright this is all we have for now, so let me repeat this:" Linda said as she repeated the plan, "First Tsukiyo will destroy the barrier with his demon abilities. After that, Wiz and Screw...I mean, Megumin will aim their explosive magic towards the fortress' legs to immobilize it. As a precaution, we will still set up barricades and traps if it doesn't work, along with that any heavy weapon users will be on standby to attack the legs to deal any finishing damage to it. The creator of the fortress is still inside, so we have arrow and rope to fire at the fortress for when we invade it. Any Questions?" She asked in a serious tone.

After the conference was over, all the adventurers left the Tavern and got straight to work on barricades and setting up traps. Some townsfolk that weren't evacuated yet decided to help out with the construction, and by the afternoon we were just about ready to have the mobile fortress come for us.

Way down the road, far away from everyone else who was preparing traps and barricades for the destroyer, was Darkness with her sword dug into the ground staring into the open space with a serious expression on her face.

Me and Kazuma would try, and probably fail, to convince Darkness to come back to the barricades instead of getting squashed.

"Ok, look Darkness. You're defense is really strong I know that from the experience with the Dullahan, but this is going waaay too far, even for you. You do know that you might get caught in the crossfire when Wiz and Megumin unleash their spell right? Even if their explosion fail to stop it, you're going to die if you stay here. Let go of your fetish this time, and just be patient, ok?" Kazuma said as he tried to persuade the stubborn Crusader. She didn't listen to him since she didn't move one inch from where she was.

She stayed quiet for a while before replying with "You guys...Do you think I'm that type of person who'll just let their desire take over in a life or death situation? I know I act like this once in awhile, so I can understand from where you're coming from, But as a Crusader, I can't let this go…" She said in a serious voice

"I mean everything you said just now is actually is the least normal thing you've said the entire day so yeah, also we don't think you're the type of person to let the fetish get in the way, We KNOW you're that type of person…" I said as I just shot down her cool mood she was trying to go for...

She still didn't turn her head towards us, but I can tell I got her beat.

"But, if you want to do this, then go ahead. I have no right to decide what you do, so prove me wrong if you're really a Crusader…" I said as I turned my back and started to go back to the rest of the adventurers…

Kazuma ran up next to me and asked, "Are you sure you want to leave her out here when the Destroyer comes? She might actually die, you know?" He asking this in a cautious tone, I answered back, "In a situation like this, she's not the type to back down when all odds are stacked against her, she won't move from that spot. This time I'll trust her." I said as I didn't look back.

From here on out, it was now a do or die situation, and running away wasn't an option anymore.

By the time we got back to the barricades, everyone was set up and waiting for the destroyer. Megumin was trembling from the situation we were in, Aqua and Wiz were talking about something, and heavy weapon adventures were right next to us with their weapons in prime condition ready for when the time came.

"Attention All Adventurers, the mobile fortress is about to appear! All adventurers get your weapons ready, and remaining citizens please leave immediately! Prepare for battle!" Linda said using voice amplification magic.

On the horizon in the distance was a huge spider like figurehead towards us at a rapid pace, one thing was for sure, the size of the fortress was way bigger than we imagined. The sheer size and speed of it was very intimidating and was starting to freak out a couple of adventurers behind us.

Even I was starting to get scared of it as my heartrate started to climb.

Hey is this really gonna work!?

 _It's going to work, trust me!_

As the fortress started to get nearer and nearer, some adventurers started to panic.

"Hey, this is too huge! It's impossible!" "It's much more terrifying than what I imagined!"

"H-h-hey Tsukiyo, this will work right!? This plan is going to work fine right!?" Aqua asked frantically from fear, I couldn't blame her since I was almost in the same state as she was…

"Don't worry Guys, Calm down. Even if we fail, no one will blame you. Don't think about this for too long, this is the only plan we have, failure is okay…" Wiz said in a calming tone. Although her business sucked, It helped knowing that we had some type of veteran adventurer with us.

"That goes for you too Megumin," Kazuma said to her as he had both hands on her shoulder to calm her down, "No one will blame you if we fail. Just do what you do best, that's all we ask for."

"R-r-right, I-i-i- try t-t-to do my b-b-b-best! Blast it into d-d-d-dust…" Megumin was still trembling as she heard his words…

"It's coming fast! --Everyone prepare for battle!" an adventurer said loudly.

 _That's our cue..._

No need to remind me, still freaking out…

I turned on DT, closed my eyes, and concentrated on letting Vergil take control of my body for him to use the Yamato.

All the adventurers near me looked at me in awe as they saw the blue aura that covered the top half of my body. When I was done concentrating, I opened my eyes and saw my body in a 3rd person perspective. I was just over my right shoulder, but the spirit of Vergil's soul was less transparent and a bit more solid.

I looked ahead towards the field where destroyer was and was blown away from how much distance it covered from the couple of seconds I turned my head away.

Although it was hard to see from a distance, I could tell that it was getting close to Darkness so I, I mean, Vergil had to break the barrier soon.

"Tsukiyo! Now!" Kazuma gave me the signal as the fortress was at a good enough distance.

It was at this time that Vergil summoned the Yamato at lighting fast speed while holding the Yamato in a stance similar to what Jack frost did to cut off Kazuma head. Soon the Yamato started to glow dark blue with black energy engulfing around it, you could tell that the energy had enough killing force because the wind and ground around us started to get sucked in the Yamato.

 _"My Power will be absolute…"_

When Vergil finished charging the Yamato, he let out a hyper quick slash towards the direction of the destroyer that barely revealed the blade. When the slash was finished, he sheathed the Yamato slowly, before quickly closing it letting out a small shine of blue as it closed. (A.k.a Judgement Cut, I don't have a reference vid for this, just look it up)

Looking at the Destroyer, the barrier would appear for a short moment before having it shatter entirely with a large whirlwind of slashes and cuts engulf the destroyer.

It was at this time that Kazuma gave the signal for Megumin and Wiz to cast their explosion magic to stop the destroyer.

"Wiz now! Megumin! If you're not some kind of fake wizard who could get out exploded by Wiz then go all out and take out its legs, unless you can't do that!" Kazuma antagonized as he snapped Megumin out if her fear into rage.

The two of them casted their explosion at the same time, and the effect was devastating. Even If the destroyer was at a distance, you could still feel the vibrations and explosive intensity at full force.

When the dust around was gone and we could get an actual sight of the destroyer, we saw it on the ground and not moving. Somehow, we managed to get a destroyer, something made from advanced magic and metal, to be immobilized and not move anymore.

I take back what I said a couple of months ago when I said that Megumin's explosion are sort of nukes. THIS feeling, the vibration and intensity of two explosions at one time, THIS is Hiroshima…

The glow around my body was starting to dim at a quick pace, and when it fully dimmed, my vision went black before opening my eyes again to see that I'm back in my body. Even though the Yamato was successful, I was out of breath and on my knees.

Since I was completely out, I might have to sit this situation out. I mean, I'm not complaining about this, this is a pretty good situation to be in 'cause that means I don't have to go into the fortress and get myself killed, so hey: Win, Win Situation…

As I was on my knees out of mana, smiling to myself internally, Linda handed me a small flask. "I don't need any booze right now, but thanks for offering…" I always wondered what the booze tasted like in here since I staff members weren't allowed some while in shift, since it was medieval times I can only guess that it tasted pretty bad…

"Now not the time for jokes Tsukiyo, it's a bottle of Mana recovery. You said that your "form" drains mana right? Well, we need all personal out there in the field in a situation like this. This Bottle will only recover about 25% of your mana, your body will have to regenerate the rest by itself." She told me, _Sigh_ just when I thought I was able to lay back and let other people do the rest of the work, I took the flask that Linda handed me and drank it.

huh, reminds me of sprite…

The destroyer wasn't moving for a while and most of us were staring at it intently taking caution for any sudden movements or counters it might take, but for the moment it just did nothing. In a situation like this, we should probably set up camps and have people watch it for anything unusual. We should be able to regroup and think up a more thorough plan for when-

"Holy shit! We did it! Let's go back to the Tavern and get shitfaced drunk! Yeah! I thought that something with a scary name like the 'Mobile Fortress Destroyer' would be a lot more difficult to bring down, I guess was wrong!" Aqua shouted in joy and arrogance, it was at this time that the ground started to shake, and a mechanical voice came out from the destroyer saying **"ERROR, ERROR, MELTDOWN IMMINENT. PLEASE EVACUATE THE DESTROYER."**

You Son of a Bitch! Why did you have to trigger a flag right now of all times! Now we're probably gonna have to deal with more bullshit than we need to deal with. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SCREW US!

 _Told you we should've killed her..._

(Ok, just a small note about the upload rate, I'm think I might have to go for one chapter per week because of college and the amount of work and art projects being given to me. I don't know how many people still read this despite having almost 45 bookmarks, thanks btw, but sorry for going 1 chap per week, you'll get 2 chapters if there was a cancelled class or holiday day, so yeah. This week and next week might be an exception because labor day...

Also to the people who commented about not wanting to ship Tsukiyo and Darkness, I give you this: Sorry, not sorry.

Hearing people not like the ship is actually funny to me for some reason...

Also thanks to the one person who actually supports the ship even if he/she doesn't like it, not sure why you guys don't like the ship but I guess I'll hear what some people have to say about it via review so that'll be fun…

P.S: if you got the notification saying I posted Chapter 91021, just know that it was a failed attempted at puting Chapter 9(plus symbol)10=21 as a chapter title..)

Reference:

1 - Attack on Titans (You know this already, but I'm just putting it in for those who don't know)

2 - - http/devilmaycry./wiki/Yamato -


	22. Nuclear Core and a Fake Death- Vol 2 End

Ok, good news: We brought down the destroyer and made it so it can't move.

Bad news: A fucking flag was triggered and now it might explode from a meltdown.

Because the destroyer was about 15-30 miles away from the town, we were sort of safe from any counter attacks that might happen, but we never expected a bomb to show up and go jihad on us.

Whether it be a small explosion or a nuke, we need to get it somewhere where it won't do any harm to the town. All those jokes on Hiroshima, it's finally come back to bite me in the ass…

Kazuma called up all the adventurers on standby to come near the gate, to make up some kind of gameplan to deal with the destroyer remains. One of the adventurers asked whether or not it'd be safe to stay here out in the open, this was on everyone's minds except for Darkness, who might still be alive? I think…

"I mean, if something is gonna meltdown, especially a core, then yeah….it might be safe for the moment until it probably explodes…" I said casually, everyone else on the other hand looked at me with a stiff expression.

Kazuma soon spoke after me, "Yeah, it's just as Tsukiyo said, there's a good chance that this might explode. I have no clue how big, but it might be big enough to hit maybe half the town because of its size, I don't know…" Their faces grew pale as he said that.

Alright, I Think I Can use enough force from my arm to knock out Darkness and drag her out of here with enough time to avoid the explosion. Kazuma can get Megumin and Aqua can walk so, I think this might be a solid plan…

As I looked around at the faces of the adventurers with their spirits sort of crushed, I heard Wiz in a somber tone like she was about to cry, "My shop...if we leave now it'll get destroyed…"

I'm not trying to sound like a dick, but...if your shop was destroyed doesn't that mean you won't be in the red anymore from sales…? Also..no one really came to your shop for items that are 90% bombs so...

….Yeah...not gonna say that, I'll feel too bad if I do…

"...I want to attack" random boi #1 said, why he said it...actually I have no idea, why is he saying something bold?

"Me too, I remembered why I decided to stay in this town even if I was over level 30…" random boi #2 said, Why the hell are you still here if you're over 30?

"This shop has been taking good care of us in our time of need. We can't abandon it now, not after everything we've gave to it and given back." Random boi #3 said, ok someone explain to me what's going on because I have fucking clue what they're talking about...anyone?

Kazuma would soon use his voice amplification to ask the adventurers one question, "Those in favor of infiltrating the Mobile Fortress Destroyer, raise your hands!" Almost all the guy adventurers raised their hands, the girl adventurers and I were just clueless on what was going on.

Without a second to waste, some of the archers nearby shot out their arrows with the rope attached to it towards the destroyer, as soon as the arrows hit their mark, the adventurers charged towards the Destroyer and started to climb.

I figured I'd go last, because I remember watching videos of westerners charging in stores on "Black Friday", don't know what it was but I made a promise to never go there during the fall. Or ever as a matter of fact, too much bullshit going on over there…

Aqua would soon interrupt my thoughts, "Oh man...you know, I'm a bit intimidated of those people and their tenacity so...let's just leave this to them. Ok? Tactical retreat and all that…"

Kazuma had a the same look of determination as the other adventurers, "How could you tell me to leave my comrades you moron. Can't you tell how brave they re charging into the fortress like that headfirst! How about you do your job properly and start healing the soon to be wounded, go do your job if you're not a useless goddess…" Kazuma said in a "manly" voice as he followed the adventurers, ok...yeah, I can tell bullshittry when I hear it, they're doing this for some stupid reason. Going in head first into a fortress isn't brave, it's dumb. Like REALLY dumb.

I followed behind Kazuma because I know that he's in over his head and will get hurt.

"Hey Darkness, you hang out here, your armor is too heavy! Megumin, you stay here! Wiz, be normal! Aqua get up here, this is your problem too!" Kazuma said with his amplified voice.

Aqua would complain as to why she needed to be involved, but she knows why...damn flag trigger

By the time we got to the deck of the fortress what we saw was….interesting…

There were adventurers everywhere, and they are somehow outnumbering the enemies that were supposed to defend this fortress. I know that this town has some vet. adventurers in here, but is this really a novice town?

Other than the large amount adventurers in the middle fighting what seems to be golems, an even larger group was near 2 sets of very large doors were bashing their buster swords, hammers, and axes at the door trying to get in.

Whoever was in the fortress controlling it is gonna get shrekt by these guys.

We were so confused by this sight that we didn't notice a large golem behind us trying to for a sneak attack until someone mentioned it, "Hey you guys! Watch out!"

When we looked behind us, we saw a larger golem that was much bulkier than the others try and swing at us. All 3 of us barely dodged it, thanks to ranbom boi #4, if we hadn't noticed it I'm pretty sure we would've gotten a large concussion or have our skulls cave in.

For the first time I'd actually get to use the Blue Rose because if you look closer at the golem it was robotic. So bullets win in this battle.

I pulled out my revolver that was holstered in the back of my pants, I'd take a mental note to try and make a holster so I could carry it properly, and aimed it at the center of the golem.

I took 3 shots, because that was the max I could do before reloading….so damn inefficient, but badass.

 ** _Bang! Bang! Bang!_** (Pull My De- I'm not gonna make the same joke twice... -Konran)

All 3--uh 6 shots landed. 2 went on its stomach, 2 on its shoulder, and 2 on the corner of its head. Everyone turned their heads towards my direction not knowing what sound that was considering that guns were the rarest of the rare in this world.

The golem collapsed to the ground and its robotic fluids (?) started to leak out from the head.

Before I even knew it, my hands started to shake. My heart stopped for a moment and rapidly increased in less than a second, and my stomach started to churn, BAD.

Looking at this figure, it sort of reminded me of killing someone….and the way I shot it sort of reminded me of how I died in a sense.

I dropped the Blue Rose and the churning in my stomach soon turned into vomit as I fell to my knees.

"Hey Tsukiyo! What's Wrong!?" Kazuma shouted towards me as he and Aqua were now next to me as I was clutching my stomach.

I couldn't speak, I was struggling so hard to try and form words but nothing was coming out.

"Are you experiencing trauma from when you died?" Aqua asked me, I still couldn't respond with words, but the least I could have done was nod my head, so I did.

How she was able to figure out, I have no idea. But for once, I guess I was glad that she could understand me at a time like this.

"Hey, how do you know that?" Kazuma asked Aqua, she wasn't her usual careless and bitchy self, but was in a neutral mood.

"Kazuma, while I may be almost year older than you in this worlds time, in terms of heavens time, I'm way older than you by hundreds and hundreds of years, and when you see people die countless times from various different ways and ages, you seem to pick up on a couple of things…" She said calmly.

She put her hand on my back and started to rub my back a bit, while using some type of magic to heal me and my trauma.

The feeling of remembering my death was still there lingering in my mind, but my stomach churning was gone and my heart slowed down a bit.

My hands weren't shaking, but I was still a bit weak when trying to get up. Kazuma grabbed my shoulder when he saw me struggling and helped me up.

After what seemed like a long time, I was able to form words and say to both Kazuma and Aqua, "Thank you…"

It was at this time, that we were alone in the deck while the doors were busted open. The adventurers had left us behind while heading towards the control room to go after the mastermind of the Destroyer.

Before we started moving, I took off my cloak, balled it up and tossed it to the side. It was already covered in barf and was old enough where I needed stronger gear, Aqua picked up my Revolver and handed it to me. I holstered it back in the back of my pants and the 3 of us started to head inside the fortress and follow the sounds of shouting, pounding, and war cries.

As we walked into the room on the deepest part of the fortress, we saw a massive research and control room. There was giant windows the size of buildings towards the front with a throne there, and behind the throne on the opposite side of the room was a giant tube with a giant ball, which could be the core. A couple of feet behind the throne was multiple tables and lots scattered documents, notes, maps, levers and buttons that most likely controlled the destroyer.

All the adventurers who had a face of confidence and determination before, was now troubled as if they found something completely unexpected. What made me assume this was the way that they surrounded the throne near the windows.

"Oh, Kazuma. You're here…" One adventurer said, there was no emotion when he said that.

As we got closer to the throne, we saw a very decayed skeleton in the throne. It was rotted out along with the dirty and nearly gone rags it had on.

Damn, so the Destroyer was acting on its own then. No one was giving it orders to destroy anything, it was running on its own.

Aqua walked towards the skeleton and looked at it from side to side for a moment before saying,"Yeah, he already passed on, he won't be back as a undead since he had no regrets after dying…"

Damn, now that's a cold blooded person right there…

"Ok, Everyone search for something that could lead to his motivation for creating this fortress, there should be something here that explains why…" As soon as Kazuma said that, the adventurers split up inside the room and started to check everything here.

Aqua would soon walk towards the tables that had documents and pick them up seeing if they had anything useful, "Hey! I think I found his journal!" Aqua shouted, we soon all turned to her and stayed silent as she read the journal dates…

(Ok, quick note: I'm just gonna summarize everything that was on the journal because in the LN, this takes up about 4 1/2 pages on mobile…"

After reading the last 4-5 pages of the journal that was found in here, I tried to understand what kind of fuckery that this man created and the more I tried to understand, the more I feel like there is no sane person in this world…

So it started like this:

This man was given the task to create a mobile weapon by higher ups in the country and wasn't given the choice to not create it. He tried protesting, quitting, and acting retarded, but nothing worked. The day of a deadline comes in for the base blueprint and he still has nothing, he sees a spider fall in his paper and squashes it with it. He decides to send it as it is because he's already broke and frustrated.

The higher ups sees the blueprint with the spider squashed on it and for some reason accepts it as it is. Fast forward a couple of months later where mobile base productions starts, and a problem rises up, they needed to a core to power the base. He asks for the a super rare legendary core, which was Coronatite, which would seem impossible but for some reason was able to get it.

When the times comes for him to place the core inside base to power it, he has zero idea whether or it if it'll work, since this was all on a whim for the most part. Since tomorrow, in his time, would've been the activation day, he decided to drink and eat as if it was his last day, considering that there was a really good chance that it would've been his last.

He wakes up with a hangover the day of activation and is wondering why there were tremor on the grounds. He soon remembers that he flicked a cig. inside the core and accidentally activated it. Still angry about the higher ups, he decides to go renegade and not care about the damages that the destroyer causes, he had a good amount of food to last him for while.

Fast forward a couple of months later, and the Mobile base has destroyed the kingdom that the creator hated. He has no regrets, he lived the rest of his life inside the base, couldn't stop the base, and soon dies happily...

I really hated him for creating this and letting it run free destroying shit everywhere, but can respect him 100% for letting arrogant people get what they deserved even if it was 100% unnecessary.

He went out of this life like a fucking G, and no one could've be more of a dickbag than he could.

But this was only my opinion because everyone else of the other hand started to destroy the skeletal remains of the creator by using either their hands or weapons. If the creator was still watching, I bet he'd be laughing his ass off.

After everyone emptied out their anger and the skeletal remains were now dust, we headed to the back of the room where the core was.

"So...the Coronatite…" Kazuma said as we looked deeply at the core

This was the next problem, how do we get to the core when it was fenced off with a magic barrier and inside probably multiple inches of heat resistance glass, and somehow not trigger a meltdown that causes Chernobyl 2.0…

The barrier might be able to be repelled by Aqua's spell break, but I'm not sure if it'll work cause it's not a demonic barrier…

 **\--**

Hey, you think the Yamato could cut through this barrier?

 _Obviously yes, but you gotta make sure you don't go overboard and accidentally make a cut into another dimension._

Why are you so goddamn overpowered, like holy shit. Are you sure you lost to Mundus back in DMC3?(1)

 _Yes, want to know why? Because plot._

 **\--**

I was able to carry myself at this point, so I let go of Kazuma's shoulder and straightened myself out. Turning on DT, I summoned the Yamato to try and see if I could cut through the barrier and glass, while not killing everyone else.

"Oh wait, I got a better Idea! We won't need to cut the fence, watch this!" Kazuma said with confidence, " 'STEAL' " he shouted.

There was a bright flash of light that came from his hand as it glowed bright. When the glowed dimmed down and disappeared, I felt a very hot sensation right next to me.

The core was at his hands and was still burning brightly and most importantly...HOT

"AHHHHH!" Kazuka shouted as he dropped the core and tried to treat this burns on his hands as he casted freeze on his hands. Aqua would be right next to him healing his third degree burns.

"Ok, now you have to answer me honestly...Are you a fucking moron? Like, I know that you pull some shady shit from time to time, and the girls are no better, but this….this is a new type of stupidity...WHO THE FUCK GRABS A CORE WITH THEIR BARE HANDS AND THINKS IT'LL BE OK!?" I shouted at him as he was still caring for his hands.

"Hey it was a good idea at the time! Don't blame me!" He shouted back

"It wasn't a good idea to begin with, why was this you're no.1 choice instead of letting me use my Yamato to cut the glass and barrier?" I shouted back

"Guys, stop arguing! The core is about to blow if we don't do something quick!" Aqua shouted as me and Kazuma fought.

It was true though, the core was pulsating white and red slowly, like a certain creature from a certain childhood series that I used to watch…(2)

 **\--**

Well….we're fucked…

 _No we're not._

 **\--**

It was at this time that my Demon Arm acted out on its own and summoned Yamato. My arm would soon take the Yamato out of it scabbard and do a cut horizontally and vertically towards a wall, and in the middle of the cut a portal would open emitting a dark purple aura.

Ok, 1. holy shit this is op, and 2. how the fuck can he take control of my arm now!?, 3. Where does this lead to??

"Ah! Good Idea Tsukiyo, you managed to open a portal to ditch the core! That's a good idea!" Wiz said happily, Everyone else seemed to cheer me on for doing this...but it wasn't me

 **\--**

Ok, What were you trying to do with the portal? And where does it go.

 _I was opening a portal to a different location, don't know where but it far from here. The Yamato as of right now doesn't have enough power to summon a portal to Hell or another dimension, but has small teleportation use. I was planning on taking over and leaving your comrades here for the explosion…_

Wow...that's beyond a dick move. That's just wrong…

 _Says the guy who wanted to cheap out on fighting inside the fortress…_

 **\--**

A couple of adventurers with their heavy weapons used their buster swords to pick up the core while one hammer user just baseballed the core straight into the portal.

It went in and Vergil closed the portal with my arm.

There, Out of sight, Out of mind.

"Um, Tsukiyo Where did that portal lead to?" Wiz asked, "No clue. Do I want to find out? No I do not." I answered Wiz.

I honestly hope that the core landed somewhere in the middle of Bufu Egypt. I didn't want to disturb the lord and savior Cthulhu if it fell inside the ocean…

Now that the core was gone, the mystery of the Creator was solved, and the Destroyer was now disabled, the adventurers that filled the control room slowly made their way back to the deck and down the rope that was on the side of the Destroyer.

I would've been one of the last people to get down from the deck and onto solid ground, but before I could even get near the rope the Destroyer was moving and shaking violently.

All the rope arrows were knocked off and soon enough, the destroyer was high above the ground back to it original height.

I got knocked down onto the ground from the tremors and was greeted with multiple shadowy figures floating above in the air near the door, just about 4-5 of them glowing dark blue. Their heads popped out looking like some kind of red bug with big blue eyes in a constant glare, a arm popped out from the cloud and the hand had one extendable and sharp finger, and on the bottom of the cloud was a small stinger but looked like it wasn't for stinging.

I instantly recognised them, it a Mephisto (Meph.) Which meant that the bigger cloud in the middle was…

The bigger dark cloud in the middle was glowing a light purple and a silver head popped up from it indicating its head. You couldn't see its eyes or head as a matter of fact since it was being covered by a pimp hat made by the same dark cloud as its body. Instead of having one arm pop out and having one very sharp extendable finger, both of kts arm came out and had all 10 of its fingers glowing pink and usable.

It was Pimp Daddy Faust, and if they were here, then that means Kosuke is somewhere in this destroyer with me. I had no clue where, but I know he's here.

The Faust pointed its fingers at me, giving the Meph.'s the signal to attack me. All 4 came at me at one time, while the Faust stayed behind and observed.

Dealing with the Meph. is an easy-ish task, especially with the Devil Bringer. Use snatch and take away their dark cloak hiding their body, and punish. It was a bit more challenging when the situation becomes real and not a videogame, but their attacks were slow and recognisable.

Not giving me a chance to have any breathing room, all 4 of the Meph. surrounded and rotated around me.

I had to time this perfectly if I wanted to do something that the game wouldn't let me do….

Hearing the audio cue for the extendable finger, I dodged one of the fingers behind me only to hear another one to the right, and after I dodged that one, I heard two of them come from both sides.

I backed away and took a small breather, compared to the game, they're not just separate entities anymore, but a group communicating to kill me.

I cracked my Demon arms fingers and readied myself knowing how difficult they really are in real life.

Using the main strat. of snatching off their dark cloak, I managed to tear off a good chunk of cloak away from 2 of them and the cloak that was in my hands got absorbed into my arm and started to glow blue.

I took out my Blue Rose and pointed it towards one of the Meph. with the least amount of cloak. My hands were shaking as I aimed at it, I breathed in, calming myself down and fired.

 _Ker- **BANG**_

The Blue Rose shot a charged bullet that had a distorted sound before the meaty sound came in.

The Meph. that got hit got lit on fire and lost all its cloak falling down to the floor with its bug-like body exposed. I used snatch to get it closer towards me and grabbed its tail slamming it on the ground and kicking it away from me before using snatch again to dig my Sword inside its body and revving it up to burn it from the inside.

I slashed my sword outwards and split the top body in half. The other Meph. backed away for a bit before fully charging at me while using their fingers to try and hit me.

I dodged one of its finger pierce and used my sword to hit the finger that was extended to try and break it off. Another came near my head and cut my cheek.

I grabbed the finger that was retracing and used my Demon Drain to take away it cloak. As the cloak was getting smaller and more transparent, my arm now glowed a orange.

I drug the finger that I was holding onto closer to me and used my sword to try and behead the Meph. that was caught. While the cut wasn't sharp enough to cut it off from one slice, multiple slices from me would do the trick.

There were 2 Meph.'s left and it was now time for Pimp Daddy Faust to join in on the fight.

I had to be a lot more cautious around Faust since he could use all 10 of its finger to extend and retract at me. The same strat. could be used, but it'd take much longer since he's like a mini-boss to the regular Meph.

I pulled out the Blue Rose again and quickly aimed it at the Pimp and used the orange tier charge shot to hit him, but he was too fast and made me miss my shot.

He got too close me and used both of his hands to do Wolverine slashes to cut both my arms and a bit on my stomach when I tried to block and got knocked back.

Getting back up felt like shit and I'm pretty sure I was low on health. I tried to use DT but wasn't able to, I guess I was too low on mana to even trigger it.

If I make it out of this situation I'm going to take a 2-3 week break just to grind money and buy some actual armour because this shit needs to stop…

I revved up my sword to level 3, If I'm gonna go out, I'm not gonna hold back.

It was at this moment that I heard a loud explosion come from behind the Faust and actually make him lose all of his cloak and expose his bug-like body. The Meph. on the side of him moved out of the way and looked to where the source of the explosion came from, and so did I.

I saw a figure in the distance that had a 3 barreled rocket launcher which looked very advanced, but soon transformed into...a suitcase?

"Man, you really suck at killing these guys! I'm contemplating whether or not to take back that revolver. If you get one shotted by these guys then our fight isn't gonna get very interesting…" Kosuke shouted as he held the dark suitcase, Pandora, over his shoulder.

"Yeah, well...This is partly your fault too…" I said under my breath.

(https//url?sa=tsource=webrct=jurl=https//watch%3Fv%3DXmXlEigpW-Uved=2ahUKEwjf3t6P0ardAhWjOH0KHdotDkcQwqsBMAF6BAgKEAUusg=AOvVaw30iLzKFDEWYQWSjwFwSImr)

The Faust that was in its insect form got its dark cloak back up and started to focus more on Kosuke, the Meph. that were in the side surrounded him on both sides.

Kosuke stretched his arms for a bit while the 3 cloaked demons surrounded him. He held out the Pandora in front of him, "You guys wanna see a magic trick? Watch this." He said, He would soon hold the Pandora behind him before having it glow for a bit and soon fling it at the Faust in front of him.

Except this time, it wasn't in the shape of a suitcase anymore, it was a 3 pronged glaive that soared the air around him and hit all 3 of the demons before returning to him (Pandora Form 422: Grief --9:45)

The Faust went right up in his face and tried to do the same swipes as it did to me, but Kosuke managed to dodge it way faster than I could ever try.

While in the air, He made the suitcase transform again but this time, it was in the shape of a mini gun, and he rained down fire on all 3 of the demons from above as their cloak got smaller and smaller (Pandora Form 262: Jealousy --5:06)

The two Meph. that were on the ground went up to Kosuke's level and used both their retractable fingers to hit Kosuke from each side, but kosuke acting like the cockiest guy alive rode the Pandora on his way down, pulled out the Coyote-A shotgun and shot all around him with the shotgun imitating nunchucks (Fireworks - 8:44)

The Meph.'s backed off, and their cloaks were now almost completely gone. The Faust who still ground level started to glow a bright purple, it was going do its desperation move. I tried to warn Kosuke about it, but by the time he noticed what the Faust tried to do he used the most powerful move he could ever use with the Pandora, Which was to open up the suitcase when he hit the floor (Pandora Form 666: Omen - 9:06)

The light emitting from the case was so bright, It hurt so much to move my arm to block my eyes, but it was worth not getting blinded by the suitcase. I heard a closing sound, and as I opened my eyes the Meph. and Faust were gone without a trace.

He started to walk up to me with the Pandora on the side and ask, "What? No thanks or anything? Talk about respecting your elders, and here I was trying to be nice and save your ass from low tier demons." he said in a sarcastic-disappointed tone.

I would've retorted back to him, but I didn't have enough strength to punch him in the gut.

"Let's just get off this place before more of them show up…" I said as I was panting lightly.

"What do you mean? There's actual fall damage in this world, we can't jump down and assume we'll be alright..." He said even more sarcastically, "You have Pandora, you can use the mobile explosion base…" I said to him, but he seemed to have ignored me since we was already setting up the Pandora to do the mobile explosion base (Pandora Form 594: Argument --8:54)

"Well hop on! I don't wanna stay in this place and get crushed, time's a wastin'!" He said, as he was 10 feet away from me, it would've been nice if he could've been closer when he did that…

I slowly made my way towards him, when the sky started to darken and the ground trembled even more than usual, it sort of reminded me of…

oh shit….

I started to run with all my might and held on to the Pandora in its mobile explosion form and yell, "We gotta go! Like right now!"

Kosuke, somehow being able to drive this...circular explosion base...floored it, and we were out of the base, in the air, and heading towards the town. I looked above the fortress and saw multiple runic symbols line up and aim down towards it. It was Megumin's spell, and we're so damn close to its blast radius.

"We gotta go faster! We're gonna get nuked by that thing if we don't get away fast enough!" I shouted, Kosuke shouted towards me "It's going as fast as it can! It doesn't help when there's dead weight hanging on the side!"

In a matter of seconds, Megumin's spell was finalized and the explosion was made. Because we were so close to we felt intense heat and wind behind us to the point where Kosuke almost lost control and spun out.

"Woohoohoohoo! Just like in those western movies!" Kosuke shouted with joy, I was holding onto one of the bars from the Pandora with a death grip. I'm not letting go until I feel the sweet embrace of the grass.

It would take about another 15-20 minutes of flight time before we were able to get close enough go the town and land.

I finally let go of the bar from the Pandora and willingly fell to the ground, of grass how I missed you so…

I heard footsteps come close to me, and when I looked up I saw my teammates look at me with a surprised face "Oh, you're actually alive…." Kazuma said as he was carrying Megumin on his back, Oh how I feel so loved after nearly dying so many times...yay…

I soon got up from the grass and noticed that Darkness wasn't here, "Where's Darkness?" I asked without thinking.

I just realised what I said, fuck...I just triggered another flag. I need to stop doing that…

Aqua who was to the right of Kazuma told me that since they waited more than 30 minutes for me to escape and regroup, they thought I was actually dead. Darkness suggested to wait a bit more, but since the Destroyer was still moving, Kazuma told her that he didn't want to take any chances with the destroyer still being up and able to move so he had to declare that I was dead and take energy from Aqua to give to Megumin so she could deal the finishing blow. As soon as the explosion was made, she went off on her own somewhere and hasn't returned yet.

Sigh, now we have to go search for her before she makes a grave…

I turned my back to thank Kosuke for the ride, but he, being the magician he is, disappeared somewhere while I was talking to Kazuma.

The three of us started to look around town for Darkness. Since my wounds were no longer burning like hell and my health regenerated up to 1/4, I was able to walk on my own without needing to get healed. Of course, I'd need it later, but I was fine right now.

I started to ask around to the adventurers that were present and any returning citizens seeing if they saw Darkness come by, or have any clue where she might've gone. For the most part they didn't see her, but a couple of people saw her go by a flower bed and towards the mansion where we lived.

I entered the mansion, "Darkness?" I said as her named echoed in the empty rooms and hallways.

I went upstairs and headed towards her room. I knocked 3 times before hesitantly opening the door. I wasn't sure if she'd be spacing out like this morning so I didn't want to be rude and barge in from being "dead." The door was now fully opened and I saw her room, her armour pieces were laid out on the bed but she wasn't there.

I was confused, people say she saw her come here but she isn't. After a couple minutes of thinking, I headed towards my room. This might be the next logical place to go if she wasn't in her room.

When I reached the hallway where my room was in, I saw that my room door was open and I could hear someone humming from inside there. I slowed down my pace and silently made my way to the door.

The closer I got to my room, the humming would get louder and louder, and the more I listened to the humming, the more I was able to recognise the tune. It was the same song I sung when I was carrying Darkness from the forest. (Linkin Park: Invisible)

When I reached my door, I peeked in and saw Darkness just about done making my bed as she laid flowers on my pillow. She was in her normal clothes, but her expression looked sad and you could tell at first glance that she was crying.

She soon sat down on the floor, and started to pray….ughh, now I'm really gonna feel bad for disrupting her and not being dead…

I broke the awkward silence that was going on when she was praying, "Umm, you don't have to go that far for when I actually die you know…" I said sheepishly.

Darkness stopped her praying and looked over to me wide eyed while tears were flowing down her face.

"...Hi" I waved as she was still motionless in the ground, but in a couple of seconds she ran up and hugged me.

I stood there for a while completely frozen from surprise, c-can someone help...please? I'm not used to this much kindness...

"why do you have the worst timing…" She said as she still held on to me sniffling, I couldn't help but laugh.

"I don't know, maybe it's because of my pretty shit luck in this party, but then again almost dying is my specialty, so I hope that my luck continues to be pretty shit if it lets me cheat death everytime." I answered Darkness, she chuckled a bit before letting go.

"What were you doing in my room anyways?" I asked, I know she was praying but I wondered to who...hopefully not Aqua...

"I was praying to the Goddess Eris to let you into heaven despite being a demon, I was almost begging because of times you protected us from danger." She said as she wiped her tears away.

Oh yeah, I remember Eris...with the shit I pulled in the beginning, I don't think she'd let me near heaven even if I was a normal human...

"And the flowers?" I said as I looked towards the flowers on my pillow, there were a couple of blue flowers.

"Oh, those flowers are called Zinnia, they describe the thoughts of friends...I guess I won't need to place them here anymore…" Darkness said as she went to reach the flowers and get rid of them.

I stopped her though, "Leave them, they look nice and I feel like it'd be a shame to get rid of them like nothing. I'll see if I can find a pot small enough for them…" I said as I blushed slightly,

Even though it was Darkness who laid the flowers on my pillow, I guess this is something I can accept every once in awhile...

"We should probably get to the Tavern, people still think I'm dead and I don't want to be given a thousand gifts of death and store them all in my room." I said as I laid my sword in the corner of my room and placed the Blue Rose on my desk.

"Right, I'll go wash my face, I'm a mess right now…" Darkness said as she headed towards the bathroom. I would grab the small pile of flowers on my pillow and put them on the desk next to the Blue Rose.

But before I picked them up, I saw a small hint of red from inside the blue pile. When I combed part of the flowers over to one side, I saw a Rose.

I was Curious and wanted to asked what the Rose symbolised, but since we didn't have much time to wait around make the town understand that I'm not dead, I'd have to save it for later.

After 7 minutes of Darkness refreshing her face, we went to the Tavern to announce that I wasn't dead and stop anyone from giving me tombstone gifts.

It would take a solid 20 minutes to tell people I Wasn't dead and another 30 to get them up to speed in what had happened before the explosion Megumin casted…

After all the explaining, everyone seemed to be at a very happy mood, not because I was still alive, but because of the destruction of the Mobile Fortress Destroyer.

Everyone was either eating until obesity, drinking until they puked, or singing folk songs until their lungs or voice gave out. It was a really joyus time for them, but not for me since I was relaying orders and filling up beer mugs at lightning speed.

It would be about 40 minutes before things calmed down and I was able to take a break, I sat down on a booth by myself before the group came to sit with me.

"If I knew I'd be taking this much orders, I would've downed some kind of potion of swiftness…" I said as I took a couple of deep breathes.

"Well, you know what they say...there's no rest for the wicked until you close your eyes for good" Kazuma said as he smirked at me, I replied back with "Don't try to act cool, you nearly killed us all inside the Destroyer. Seriously, who thinks it's a good idea to pull the core out with their bare hands?"

Our small fight continued once again as the girls watched us. With pity in their eyes, just watching us argue over stupid shit…

We would've continued if we hadn't notice the Tavern go dead silent.

We heard multiple footsteps head towards us. We saw Linda head towards us with a troubled expression leading a woman in a suit with two knights next to her.

The woman in the suit gazed at us with sharp glares. I couldn't hide my Demon Arm since It was she was on my right side.

Her Gaze grew even colder when she shouted the following: "Adventurer Tsukiyo Nakano! You are under arrest for the the crime of treason! You're coming with us!"

….wat

(Single but pretty large chapter today, college is making me submit 12 things by Thursday, send help.

But on another note, thank you for reading Volume 2 of this shitty story. Still gonna continue, and still gonna shift the characters around and make them more human in a sense.

Also, I cannot say this enough, thank you, thank you, thank you, for reading this story, and even more thank you's for reviewing it and actually putting criticism in the reviews! Like, that's all I wanted from you guys, to tell me what you think and give your opinions! And in this week I got about 6 reviews that were actually helpful and not "O i lik dis, dis gud"...

And from this point on, I'm probably gonna respond to them at the end of each chapter cycle.

So here it goes:

Review on Sep. 1 by Rift Hero: Thank you for leaving another review, yes I will respond to your comments in this format so you guys/gals can get my message faster rather than finally reading the reviews that get left behind in the dust. I'm sort of surprised that you were surprised about the ship, I mean, I did a leave a pretty decent hint in one of the earlier chapters. Also yeah, I don't like the fact that some writers will make the ship instantly sail and not give context from the past or have progression, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when people do that because if you're gonna make a ship, at least make a build up towards it that makes people want the ship to sail, but hey that's just me...

Review on Sep. 2 by YukiMegi: Thank you for leaving a review, I don't really understand why they don't like the ship either but I'm still gonna stick with it. Just know that the ship won't be official until a certain volume. But other than that, I got plans. You won't believe how far I thought into a couple of things, and how much of it I came up in the spur of the moment, it ridiculous…

Edit: This message is about 9 hours after writing this, and that certain volume might be in another 60-70 chapters….fack..

Review on Sep. 3 by RaidenTensho: Thank you for leaving a review, to be honest, I completely forgot about YunYun since I consider her a minor character so I have to think about how she will react to Tsukiyo. Also I never said the DT could be built up using points, only that Vergil gets stronger just as Tsukiy does. But man, I have something in mind that might come in the later chapters/volume and am trying to deal with how to set a drawback to the "ultimate" DT form like I do with most of Tsukiyo's gear/abilities. Maybe it'll be from DMC5 maybe not, but all I know is that I have a good idea, but am wondering if it's too Kirito mode(SAO) or not...Also, you do know that DMC5 comes out in March and not August next year right?

Review on Sep. 5 by a Guest: Thank you for leaving a review, just like what I said above, I'm trying to make the characters a bit more human while giving that Konosuba feel, even though I might be doing a pretty shit job, and yes, Even though it is my fic, I still want to incorporate the same familiarity of their character that makes them _"them"_

Review 1 and 2 on Sep. 5 by Eliza211: Thank you for leaving a review, I can understand you not liking the game that I based my OC character on, and I can accept that. You don't have to like it or understand it. Also for the Demon Arm, yeah...Like I said back in the 2nd chap I think, Tsukiyo is a DMC4 fanboy, he couldn't help it even if he almost pissed off the gods...

Review on Sep. 5 by a Guest: Thank you for leaving a review, and thank you for voicing your opinion on the singing. I don't think that the singing makes my fic unique in a sense, but thanks for the compliment. I don't know if your the same account that reviewed earlier, but regardless thank you.

Also, I got a review on the 26th that mentioned separating the dialogue format a bit more so speaking could be a lot more easier to read, so I sort of tried it with the Dialogue between Tsukiyo and Vergil by separating their conversations with "--", I might do this from now on to make their conversations more separated than the standard text.)

Reference:

1 - Based off my knowledge, at the end of DMC3, Vergil lost a fight to his brother Dante and was sent to hell where he would try to kill Mundus, King of Hell, just like his father Sparda, but weren't given a fight scene. It was assumed he lost cause in DMC1, yeah 1, Dante faces a corrupted version of Vergil and kills him. Like I typed, the timeline is pretty...strange...it goes from DMC3 - 1 - 4 - 2 - 5. And yes, Lord Itsuno did confirm 5 to be after 2 if you didn't know. Feel free to correct me, I only have crash course knowledge on the DMC Lore...

2 - Voltorb uses self-destruct


	23. Prison Sentence and Takeover

"Adventurer Tsukiyo Nakano! You are under arrest for the the crime of treason against the nation! You're coming with us!" The woman in the suit said.

….wat

"Excuse me, but what? I don't understand the situation, what treason have I committed to be under arrest, I don't get it…" I said as I was confused, seriously how did I fuck up this bad when I don't even know what I fucked up…

The tavern was still silent as they were watching me and this woman's conversation unfold.

"My name is Sena, and I'm the prosecutor of the kingdom. Let me say this so the likes of you can understand: You committed an act that literally undermined the authority of the nation. We suspected that you were either a terrorist or a Demon King Army minion, but after seeing you in person, I'm starting to believe the latter…" She spat at me filled with hate.

I stood up and faced her head on, "Ok, I don't know fuck is going on, but I'm not a lackey for some Demon King. You should stop assuming things before that kind of thinking makes you lose your job…" I said as the toxic personality came out.

"Hey, hey, hey! If she really is a prosecutor of the kingdom, threatening her isn't gonna make things better for you. If you apologise quick she might forgive you…" Kazuma said to me as he was sweating from the pressure from Sena.

"It's not a threat, just some life advice. Besides, I don't like people who assume things based off of looks alone." I said sternly as my eye contact wasn't broken.

"Besides, this is most likely a false accusation. We literally just defeated the Mobile Base Destroyer an hour and a half ago, how could I commit treason if everyone in this town, myself included, was busy with that?" I asked Sena as she was still glaring at me.

"Yeah, that's true. I was resting near a tree while watching the Destroyer the whole time, I never saw him leave the Destroyer. Are you sure you're mistaking Tsukiyo for Kazuma? I mean, He does commit a lot of sexual harassment from time to time when it comes to women and stealing their panties…" Megumin mentioned as she was thinking back from her perspective

"Now's not the time to be mentioning my past…" Kazuma retorted as he was trying to cover up his other side…

"Yeah, you're probably be mistaking Tsukiyo for Kazuma, it makes too much sense, but I don't think Kazuma is the type of person to have the guts to commit any type of crime that's very major. If he did, then he would've tried something back in the mansion when we're by ourselves instead of just look at me with eyes that hide severe carnal desires. He's sort of a loser who doesn't take the initiative to do anything bold…" Darkness added after.

You know what, I like that burn...props to you Darkness, I'll give you some points for that roast...

"Hey! Hey! Hey! W-w-who's looking at you with those types of eyes, definitely not me right guys? Don't blame me just because you have a very sexy body!" Kazuma said as he panicked to hide his true nature

"You even say that after the things you told me to do in the shower…" Darkness said as she looked away and started to blush

(Red Lens flair appearing in my eyes) Do I smell more blackmail material!? Time to deal the 2x damage finisher…

"And you did nearly destroy over half the town and it's adventurers when you removed the core from the Destroyer…" I added in…

"You keep your damn mouth shut! That was an accident! Besides, you teleported it somewhere else away from us…" Kazuma said as he grabbed my collar and threatened me, I just looked away innocently. I didn't do anything bad…

"...And that's exactly what you did for your treason! The core that was teleported landed in the mansion of the Landlord!" Sena shouted towards me…

Fuck….This really is my fault….and the landlord really died did he!?

"The landlord died did he…" I asked as all emotion from my voice was gone

I take it back, fuck this luck…

"No he didn't die. He sent all his staff away for vacation for the week and was in the basement by himself. He's ok, but the Mansion is completely destroyed!" Sena said as she was relaying the info given to her on a clipboard.

I sighed a breath of relief, "Good, no one died and I'm still a good but questionable person…"

"No your not good! What the hell!? You sent a bomb to the mansion of the landlord and nearly killed him! What part of that is good!? I get that your questionable, but in no way good in this situation! You're coming with me as a suspect of being a Demon King minion, so I'll hear what you have to say in the station." Sena said as the knights behind her started to walk to me with their weapons ready.

It was at this time that Linda came up and tried to talk some sense into the prosecutor, "Please don't do this, Ms. Prosecutor. Tsukiyo a good boy, he works hard, helps out this tavern quite a bit, and saved this town with the help of his friends twice in a row. You should at least give him a chance to explain him portion of the story."

"I'm sorry, but this situation right now is too severe. We have to take him in for questioning." Sena said as she didn't look towards Linda. Thanks Linda, at least you tried…

It was at this time that some adventurers stood up and voiced their opinion, "You know, I feel like Tsukiyo should be awarded, not Prosecuted!" "Yeah, he saved all of our lives here just from that one teleportation. We owe him our lives!" "If you're taking him, you're taking all of us here!"

Damn, ya boi got some good friends in not so high places. I can respect their choices for-

"By the way, we haven't divided the charges for the mansion repairs. Associates and the Mastermind will get what they deserve once all bills are settled. Watch your tongue before the tril starts, I don't mind if anyone wants to join him." Sena said coldly, it was at this time that everyone sat back down and stayed silent.

"...I mean, technically he did do this on his own without anyone telling him to do so, so...this was all him you know…" Aqua said slyly a she started to push the blame on me, this bitch….

"I wasn't anywhere near the destroyer since I couldn't move from excessive mana usage so I was near the wall with the nice counter lady…" Megumin said, hey are you fucking serious… is this terrorist trying to sell me out as the actual terrorist…

"Tsukiyo as much as I love you as my Japanese brethren, you uh...you're on your own right now…" Kazuma said as he started to inch away from me slowly…

Motherfuckers! I can't be pissed at them cause I know I'd do the same thing if it happened to them! Godammit!

"Hold on! I was the mastermind of this operation! Let me join in on the perverted prison lifestyle...I mean, If you're gonna arrest Tsukiyo, you're going to arrest me too!" Darkness said as she was "helping"

I'm setting those flowers on fire when I get back…

"Don't bother, we already have reports of you just standing in front of the destroyer acting useless." Sena said coldly as she brushed off Darkness.

A new discovery of uselessness, very fascinating to experience…

Wiz wanted to raise her hand and say something, but Aqua shoved her hand back down and whispered something to in her ear.

Everyone in the guild was not willing to help me with the prosecution, my own damn teammates are abandoning me or pushing the blame on me, the only one who supports me is the one person who didn't do jack shit the entire time, and I'm just about to go to prison for some random shit that bit me on the ass from some stupid plot twisting bulllshit!

"You know what...Fuck this scenario, fuck this accusation, fuck this guild minus the staff, fuck my teammates who abandoned me at the sight of major trouble, fuck this horrible ass luck that I have, fuck that stupid destroyer and its retard creator for making this situation reality, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, FUCK THIS STUPID FANTASY WORLD AND ALL ITS BACKWARDS ASS LOGIC," I was just about on my knees and Pointing both middle fingers at the ceiling, "GODDAMMIT, I HATE YOU ALL!" I shouted at the top of my lungs with all the hate built up just being released.

Sena looked at me with pitiful eyes, "Ok, he's lost it. Cuff him." The two knights that were beside her put a metal bar around my wrists and guided me out of the Tavern where there was a Prison cell nearby for transporting criminals.

They shoved me in, locked the cell doors and soon made our way to the station for interrogation.

It was a 10 minute cart ride before we stopped in front of the station, and I was guided without any care that I was 18.

We went through several hallways that all looked eerily the same before turning to a metal door where there was a guard on each side. They opened the door and let me through first. When I went through, I could hear each of the guards on boths sides of the door spit at my feet, Assholes.

Sena then walked passed me, opened a cell, and motioned me to get in, "Get in, you'll sleep for the night and wake up at dawn for interrogation. Also, don't bother using any demon tricks, this cell has Holy Protection and Purification Mines on them if you try anything sneaky." She said with a cold look.

I gave her the same look and wa pushed inside by one of the guards.

My cuffs seemed to unlock and disappear from my wrists and runes formed across the walls and cell bars to show that it was now armed.

I was now alone in my cell, specifically made for demons, and betrayed by my shit tier teammates.

I went back to kneeling and pointing my middle fingers at the ceiling, grumbling "...fuck you, fuck you, and you, and you, not you, but especially you!"

I did this for a good 20-25 minutes before giving up and going to the stack of hay on the wooden plank called a bed.

I tried to lay down on it before a piece of nail stick me on my lower back. I Looked to see if I could remove the nail, but when I moved the hay on the board, I saw a couple of more nail sticking out from the board. There was some near the head area too! What the hell!?

I decided to take the hay away from the wood board and place it on the ground, to try and sleep soundly, it took about 50 minutes to get drowsy and another 30 to get to sleep.

I would soon wake up to the sound of the cell door opening, is it dawn already? I think I might wasted too much time trying to get myself to sleep.

"A damn demon like you shouldn't even be in a cell right now, let alone alive...We'll fix that real quick…" A man said, I opened my eyes quickly and jerked my head up to see what was going on, but I was met with a punch to the face.

I fell back to the wall, and look at who were trying to fight me, it was the 2 guards that were guarding the door and another guard.

I looked from side to side trying to find an opening, the guard in front told me, "There's already another 3 guards keeping watch out front. No one'll disturb us. Let's get down to business…" He said as he cracked his knuckles.

This was a bad situation to be in. I couldn't use the DT, Devil Bringer, or any weapons to defend myself from.

I put my fists up in a defensive position to block any incoming punches. This isn't my the first time getting in a fight, won't be the last!

The guard in front of me started making swings at me, but was blocked by my forearms until I found in opening to give him a right hook. Of course his helmet was in the way, but I managed to hit it hard enough where my blow still made contact with his head.

He flinched for a moment in pain, before I drop kicked him towards the other guards on the side.

The guard in the middle was knocked down, while the other two were stumbled from getting pushed back. All three of them got up, and started to corner me. Shit…

"Goddamn Demon! Like hell we're going to let you live after this. Scum like you should've stayed back in the that shitty pit you crawled out of to get here!" The guard in the middle shouted at me as he pulled a small dagger from his back.

"Hold him down" The guard with the dagger said as he pointed it at me. The guards in the side started to walk towards me cautiously. In a split second they tried to rush me.

One of them grabbed my right arm and tried to restrain it. I tried to kick him away from he, but when I did that the other guard caught me and put me in a reverse bearhug.

The guard that I kicked started to punch and kick me continuously in the stomach and gut to the point where I wasn't able to support my weight standing up.

The guard bear hugging me loosened his grip only to toss me towards the brick wall, where both the guards kicked from head to stomach for what seemed like a an hours. I was bruised, battered, and generally fucked up.

I tried to get up only to have one of the guards kick me in the face with some force making me faceplant into the ground.

"Alright, we've had our fun. Let's finish up…" The two guards stepped aside as the guard with the dagger walked towards me and kneeled to where my head was. He grabbed my hair with his open hand and dragged my head to his level.

"Don't come back to this town, got it? Oh wait! Demons like you don't even get second chances do they!? I forgot, what kind of god would give you their precious time for a piece of shit like you!" He shouted at me as he laughed loudly with his friends on the side.

I tried to say something with the remaining strength that I had left, "...ck...o" I tried to say

"Oh! What was that demon? You better speak up!" He said as he punched me in the gut, I started to cough and spit up blood on the floor when he said that.

He took off his helmet and put his ear near my mouth, "Here, say that loud and clear. 1...2…" He counted down as he put his hand behind his ear to block out any other noises.

I spat my blood at his fade and told him, "Fuck You..." I said the last of my strength before my vision started to darken. The last thing that I saw was the guard wiping my spit off his face and him just about to stab me.

 _(Dawn)_

"Adventurer Tsukiyo Nakano, Wake up it's time for your interrogation- Hey, what kind of trick are you up to...why are you glowing blue...and..is that blood on your stomach!?" The woman in the suit said to me as she opened my cell, "Someone get a healer! We need to make sure he can-"

I turned around and met her eyes, "Don't bother, I've already self healed so there's no need for a healer, but as of right now Tsukiyo won't be able to respond to you. You're going to have to deal with me for now." I said as swept my white hair back. The once brown hair that was originally in this body was white, and the brown eyes that was friendly and didn't care much was now replaced with sharp ice blue eyes that made anyone uncomfortable with a single glare.

"Hey, what the hell happened to you last night!? Why are you beat up and why is your hair white!?" The woman said as she questioned my looks.

"Like I said, I'm _not_ Tsukiyo. As of right now, he's still recovering from getting beaten down and stabbed by 3 of you lackeys last night. He held out pretty good, but is still too weak…" I said as I stepped out of the cell was now near the woman.

"Hey! Who gave you permission to leave you ce-" She tried to say, but one cold glare of killing intent was enough to shut her up.

"Lead." I said, she didn't say anything but just turned her back and started to head towards the door where there were 2 guards waiting for her. She opened the door and I followed, the 2 guards came walked behind me as we went to a different room.

We made it to another door, and inside it was 1 table, 2 chairs, and a small half black and half white bell in the middle. There were no windows in this room, but there was bright chandelier on the ceiling above the table.

I walked in and took a seat, the woman sat ahead of me. The interrogation would begin.

The woman cleared her throat and explained what would happen:

"Ok, Let me explain how we're going to do this. This object is a magic item that can see through lies. We use this for court and questioning. The bell is synchronized with the magic being cast all around the room and ring when a lie is uttered. Understood? Let's Begin."

"Tsukiyo Nakano. Age 18, working as an adventurer, while your job is a swordsman. Please state your place of birth and what you were doing before being an adventurer." The woman asked.

"While that information may be true to Tsukiyo, I have no say where he was born and what he was doing before." I answered.

I continued to look at the woman in the suit, she glanced at the bell and back to me. "Ok, fine. Let's start over, who are you? Why are you controlling Tsukiyo Nakano?" she asked.

"My name is Vergil, 2nd son of Eva and Dark Knight Sparda. I am a half demon that resides in this arm that's attached to Tsukiyo. Like I mentioned earlier, Tsukiyo is still recovering from nearly dying last night, but that's nothing new to me and his companions since he has a knack of living through the worst of situations." I answered, the bell once again stayed silent.

"Who's Sparda? I've never heard a knight of that name before…" She asked me

"Sparda is my father, full demon. Centuries ago in my homeland, he defeated and sealed the Demon King Mundus to saved both the human and demon realm from his tyranny. He left me with my mother and brother in the human realm. It's ridiculous, some people even worship him, a demon as a god…" I answered, the bell still didn't ring

"Interesting I've never heard of a demon worshipped as a god, next question. You mentioned earlier that Tsukiyo nearly died last night, what happened to him?" She asked sternly. Well, isn't she caring…

"In the middle of the night, three guards came in and started to fight Tsukiyo. He did decent to hold them off for about 5 minutes before they started to gang up on him and nearly beat him to death like animals. Apparently they thought he was a full demon, but he isn't even close to being half... Before they left, one of them took a dagger and stabbed him. I could've stopped them from doing that, but the spells on the cell prevented me from doing anything major." I answered

She seemed confused before asking me, "How could you use your powers in that cell? We made sure to make purify any demonic energy present in the cell."

"You should never underestimate the ability of the 2nd son a Dark Knight. Hiding and using the bare minimum amount of mana isn't hard to do for recovering, even in the most secure cell in this station, it just takes time. Besides, when Tsukiyo gets stronger, I get stronger too." I answered, at this point, this form would've ran out and cut my time short, but thanks to the stockpile of points Tsukiyo had along with some of my raw energy, I increased his mana immensely to make sure I can stay longer.

"Also, let me ask you this. What kind of people do you hire for this type of job, as in guarding prisoners who are demons?" I asked

"H-huh? What kind of people we hire? Why do ask that?" She said in a confused manner.

"Because, I want to ask how idiotic you guys are hiring people like that. People who would be willing to beat down and nearly kill an 18 year old kid with no remorse or reason, other than "him being a demon." It sicken me knowing that people like that are allowed to work here, it makes me wonder how fucked up the higher ups are…" I spat at the woman.

"Hey! We had no idea that people like that existed in our ranks before today!" She tried to argue, the bell on the table rang as soon as she said that.

 _Ding*_

I smirked, "Well, isn't that fascinating...a prosecutor caught lying her own interrogation. I can't tell if this is irony or the true nature of you people…" The woman who looked shocked for a composed herself, before saying.

"You should watch what you say, the demons in this realm has taken away many things from many people. I know you can't understand but-" I cut her off, and shouted, "Of course I can understand! The Demon King sent his lackies after my human mother and killed her before me and my brother were even 8! Don't talk to me about losses!"

The womans tone shifted as she was now the defense, "I'm...very sorry to hear that...I didn't realise that you had those experiences as a young child. I apolo-" I cut her off again, "Save it, I don't need your pity…"

"Tell me...why do you suspect Tsukiyo as a possible minion for the Demon King? He's already defeated a demon boss general, and a Mobile Destroyer, focused on total annihilation. Why suspect him?" I asked her, with his accomplishments, there's almost no reason to suspect him as a traitor. Something doesn't add up...

"I-I'm sorry for all the accusations and detainment, but we had to make sure that the rumors we heard were true or not. The fate of the citizens were our top priority…" She started to apologise

"It's just like what Tsukiyo said earlier, Assumptions will make you lose your job, and if the town knew that the 18 year old kid who helped save the town twice nearly died from 3 prejudiced guards, it's bound to create quite a stir in the town. I'm not sure if the citizens will even trust you guys anymore…"I said nonchalantly, Is this Tsukiyo's personality coming out?

The woman seemed to be in a tough situation, we had blackmail on her and the fact that we know that's there's crooked knights too.

I leaned in towards the prosecutor, and asked "Are you gonna continue the interrogation? Come on, **where's your motivation…** " I asked in a tone of full confidence.

"Fine, we'll continue the questioning" She said in a defeated tone.

"As you are right now, we can't ask any question in direct relation to Tsukiyo as he's recovering, but just answer me this: Do you have any relation towards anyone part of the Demon King Army?" She asked me, if this was her final question, I won't wait.

"I wouldn't think so, besides that still applies for-" I was cut off by the bell on the table.

 _Ding*_

What!?

It wasn't long after that I was escorted back to my cell with the prosecutor watching me with different guards watching the door and my cell.

What have those idiot companions gotten themselves into!? Who would be dumb enough to….The woman in purple...dammit! I slammed my fist in the nearby wall from frustration.

"We'll have your court session tomorrow in the afternoon, be ready by that time. Tsukiyo or Vergil, you're going." The prosecutor told me as I sat in this cell

As I sat in this cell, I started to lose control of this body. I guess the limit for the control is just about done. I'll let him recover his mana for tomorrow, if he's still out.

A whole day would passed and there were no interruptions from guards wanting to fight. The court would soon be in session, and yet, Tsukiyo still hasn't recovered.

(Review from YukiMegi on Sep. 11: Thanks for leaving another review, and yeah, you understand what I think of when I'm not writing the fic, and just doing something else. Whether I'm working, doing homework/artwork, or just by myself I think so much about this story I usually wonder if I'm going too far when thinking up interactions, but then I think up of other things to replace something else and it just becomes a constant cycle of different situations just for one scenario.

For example, for this chapter, I went through 5 different scenarios for the whole prison portion, one for Tsukiyo going rouge against the guild because of Vergil, Tsukiyo going on "killing spree" on those 3 guards and going rouge, Tsukiyo being normal and having Vergil interact with Sena similar to this chapter, and other different ideas that go the opposite way, one idea after another. A lot of the times, my ideas are spontaneous. If I chose one of the different scenarios, this whole chapter would've been rewritten.

And thanks for the advice, I'll have to think about 2x as hard for the ship since I usually end up not thinking most times when writing. Good luck with your own writing!

Review 1 from a guest account on Sep. 13: Thanks for leaving a review, and thanks for the possible compliment on the intro/backstory? When I wrote the intro, I wasn't trying to go for a tragic hero/shut-in/NEET type of character, but just someone to relate to with realistic-ish situations and human emotions that I find more appealing than going for your standard protag with predictability and not much emotion unless necessary. I would like to say that I'm still keeping up with that standard, but you guys are the judge, not me...

Review 2 from a guest account on Sep. 13: Thanks for leaving a review, you say that we have similar thinking but, I think you have similar thinkings with Tsukiyo and not me, my mind is very different when I'm not "Konran.Shita". And yes, I did have to do that low blow to America, you and I both know it's true...Also, small possibility, but...I'm not entirely sure if the DT, or Vergil, will be there at the end of the Konosuba storyline. but, I'm still thinking things through…

P.S; college is still kicking my ass...


	24. A Rigged Trial and a Helping Hand

It was now the afternoon, the day court would be in session to determine whether or not Tsukiyo would be judged to be either guilty, or not guilty. The trial should be soon, but Tsukiyo has yet to wake up, his consciousness and brain waves show that he's still alive, but something is blocking him from waking up.

Since his mana was able to recover overnight, I should be able to control him for a good 8-9 hours with my energy included. Dammit, when are you gonna wake up…

Taking control was easy, it just the rate of the mana depleting that makes things difficult. If I were to stay in this form without any weapons I can last for 9 hours, maybe even 10. But with Yamato, it might go down to 8 , which mean any fights I get into in the future will have be dealt with quickly and efficiently, that won't be a problem with my experience, but I'm not so sure about this body…

The door that lead out of this room opened and footsteps were heard heading towards me, 2 armoured and 1 in heels. "Hey, it's time for your trial. Get up and get prepared, it doesn't matter which one you are, you're getting out there." The prosecutor told me, the 2 guards beside her opened the cell door and motioned me to get out. I got up from lying down, dusted myself off, and swept my hair back.

It was time for judgement, with the fact that me being a demon is now public knowledge, I have a feeling that this won't go too well…

As we left the room where my cell was, I was escorted out to a room where there was one table for 5 with snacks, drinks, and other necessities for the preparation phase. To my surprise it seemed that Tsukiyo's companions were there as well and were glad to see me until they noticed the very visible difference from the real Tsukiyo.

The perverted brat who wore green came over to me, "Hey Tsukiyo! What happened to you in prison? You look different, but really good. You should keep that look, it'll attract chicks easy." He tried to say cooly, I just looked away and ignored him.

"Hey! You there? Did your senses get dulled in there too? Man, this system really sucked then, my bad for the abandonment back in the tavern, but this time we got your back! Right guys?" He said with confidence as he turned towards "our" companions.

As I looked at our companions, I can only give sympathy for Tsukiyo with having to deal with them daily and not kill them. The self proclaimed "goddess" and impulsive child, was currently stuffing their faces with the food that was given without paying any attention to me and this brat while the blonde idiot was trying to get those two to stop making so much noise from their eating. It was disgusting…

The blond one peeked over to where me and the brat were standing and seemed to have turned her head away from us from embarrassment.

I finally spoke to them, "Look, as of right now, Tsukiyo isn't here. He's currently recovering from nearly getting beaten to death and stabbed 2 nights ago, so I'm taking control of him until he recovers. You guys remember that demonic spirit on the top portion of Tsukiyo's body when he defeated the spirit shogun? Yeah, that's me, Vergil."

They all seemed to have paid good attention to that since they were now asking questions about me starting with the glutton goddess her hostility, "HEY! I may be ok with Tsukiyo being a demon, but I don't know about you, how do we know we can trust you, huh!?", the child in awe was next, "Are you really controlling him!? That's so cool! Please show off those moves that you did like last time, please!", the blonde one who actually cared was after, "I-is Tsukiyo really gone for now? How long will it take for him to recover?"

 _Tch_ , they're all so annoying…

"One at a time, I only have 2 ears, and their already sick of hearing you, ok?" I spat at them, "Let me be clear, Tsukiyo for now is gone, I don't know how long it'll take for him to recover, that depends in him. Just because I'm a demon doesn't mean you should instantly assume I'm after your head, I may feel like that internally with a burning passion, but I won't do anything, yet. And No! I won't do those moves since I have no need to do so, so don't bother asking later. Got it?" I took a deep breath as I finished explaining.

" _Hmpf_ , of course you demon scum would get so hostile when loyalty is brought up, typical…" The glutton said cockily as she went back to the table, the child seemed to have not be affected by my words and just went back to the same table as the glutton, and the blonde was just standing there to the side, with a worried look on her face.

"If you have something to say, then say it. If not, then stop looking like that…" I said to the blonde one.

"O-oh, it's nothing, I'm just worried about Tsukiyo. You did mention that he was almost beaten to death, it sort of made me...heh…..heh…." She started to pant a bit while smiling like an absolute idiot

A knight came over to me and told me that my trial was officially ready. I turned my back on the blonde one and told her, "If you're worried about his recovery, then don't. If he dies, then I die, so I'll make sure he doesn't even get a glimpse of heaven."

I walked away from them as I headed towards the trial.

"...So you guys are just gonna ignore me like that!?" The brat in green shouted as we ignored him and his presence.

A simple judicial trial shouldn't be too hard to talk out of. You got a judge, the opposing member, testimonies, a jury, and the entire town. With Tsukiyo's reputation, I'm sure he has plenty of good karma stored up for a day like this…

….Well, that should've been the case, but now that I was informed that there are no lawyers and our only "lawyers" are our teammates, I can tell how screwed Tsukiyo is in this situation.

We were now in the courtroom, which for some reason was outside, and by the looks of it almost all the adventurers are here to witness their savior get prosecuted. I'll remember all of their faces…

"Court will now be in session! We will now begin the trial for Tsukiyo Nakano for the subversion of the nation and having possible ties with the Demon King Army! The plaintiff is Alexei Barnes Alderp!" The Prosecutor shouted, all eyes were in her and all conversation were halted.

I looked over at Alderp who stood up and presented himself to the court. What a fat bastard he is, balding too with smug grin on his face as he looked over to me and the others next to me.

"Hey," the green brat whispered, "he's glaring at us hard while looking mainly at the girls, you don't think he's a pervert do you?"

"You know what they say, it takes one to know one." I whispered back, but now do you mention it, he does seem to be looking at the girls a little bit harder than the both of us.

"Hey, can I poke his eyes out? I have this urge to do so since he's looking at us creepily…" The goddess said as she whispered to us, "Do that and I'll kill you on the spot…" I said as she glared at me.

"Besides, it looks like he focused on the blonde one so that shouldn't bother her." I said as I looked over, expecting to see her in heat, but was met with an uncomfortable expression.

"Hey what's wrong Darkness, is he bothering you that much?" The child asked the blonde, who I guess her "name" is Darkness

"Oh, it's nothing but...I'll tell you guys later…" Darkness said, as she had a sad expression on

The judge mallet hit the table multiple times, "Silence! There will be order in the court, I will not tolerate any interruptions from either sides. Prosecutor, please step forward and present your case. We have a magic item that exposes lies with us at this time, so choose your words carefully" The judge said as the prosecutor stepped forward and read the charges out loud.

"I will read out the charges applied for Tsukiyo Nakano, the accused: Tsukiyo took part with majority of the adventurers in Axel against the Mobile Fortress Destroyer when it attacked. He, without given the order to do so, conjured a portal with his Demonic Abilities to place the core when it was extracted that teleported it to the Mansion of the Plaintiff, Alderp. The results of the teleportation lead to the entire mansion getting obliterated, forcing Lord Alderp to live in an inn in this town."

"Hold on there judge! Objection!" a loud shout was heard right next to me as the glutton and self proclaimed goddess had a look of excitement on her face.

"The defence my only speak when defending the accused! I'll let you off easy this time since it's your first time in court." The judge said sternly as he was annoyed with the blue idiot.

"Oh, it's alright. I just wanted to say it once." She said in a careless tone, I'm really gonna have to kill her later…

The court resumed its session and was now back in order, "That is all the charges brought up. In Short, Tsukiyo Nakano is being tried for possible ties to the Demon King and attempted murder of Lord Alderp." The prosecutor finished her speech and stepped back where the fat bastard was.

The judge would soon speak after clearing his throat, "The accused and defence may speak and plead their case."

"I plead not guilty under the false accusations of being related to the Demon King to cause any harm or damages towards the town that I reside in. Also, I may be a demon but just because I am one, doesn't mean that I'm hellbent on destruction and domination" I said in a calm and composed tone, no point in panicking if I know that I'm in the right

"Interesting...Prosecutor Sena, you may present your case on why the accused should be found guilty…" The Judge said as he looked at me with an interested gaze.

"Yes your honor. I present the first set of Eye witness' that first encountered Tsukiyo before his true Identity was revealed." The Prosecutor said, I guess her name was Sena then…

The first set of witness' that were brought in was a group of three people, 1 Guy in heavy armour with a medium buster sword, and 2 female companions. One spear user and one mage. I have this feeling of extreme hate for this fellow, and I can't understand why...

"Mitsurugi of the Demon Sword Gram and his companions, If memory serves right, you, the accused, and his companion got into a scuffle in the middle of the day. Would you mind telling us what happened that day?"

Mitsurugi recalled what happened (Back in chapter 10), "Alright well, I saw the blue haired companion of his in a caged and tried to rescue her from being trapped inside a cage that her companions put her in. When I confronted them, they got hostile and defended the cage from me. A few unnecessary words and phrases were thrown at each other, and it lead to a fight between me and Tsukiyo Nakano and Satou Kazuma to have it be an honorable fight. I was defeated with my sword stolen and sold the same day. Although I was frustrated and angry, It was me who started the incident-" He would try to say that last bit before getting cut off by his companions

"Yeah and he tried to kill us when we went after him to get the sword back! If we were any closer than where we were at that time, we would've died!" The companion with the spear said, the smaller more timid companions said in a shaky voice, "His sword had fire come out of it when he swang it at us, it was horrifying!" Tsukiyo and his damn tempter...

The judge glared daggers at me as the timid girl started to sniffle, Sena broke the silence, "Mitsurugi and his companions, you may now leave. I present the 2nd eye witness."

The three left the center stage, while a female mage walked up with a uncomfortable look.

"Beginner Mage Emilia, during the incident of the Demon boss Dullahan Beldia, do you recall the behavior of Tsukiyo during that time when confronted for the first time?" Sena asked the mage, (Back in Chapter 9)

"Well...back when the Dullahan attacked, the girl with the screw loose was being targeted by him. His companions seemed determined to defeat the boss and not have her confront the boss alone, but I saw him trying to back away slowly from his companions when they were about to fight." The female knight said as she finished recalling her memory

"Interesting, not only was he gonna let his companions fight a Demon Boss alone, he was just about to abandon them!" Sena shouted, the looks on the crowd were turning sour and the judge glared at me more.

"You may now leave Emilia, I present the last eyewitness-" Sena tried to say before getting cut off by the fat bastard accusing Tsukiyo.

"Oh come on, can't we just settle things much quicker? He's a demon people! A Demon! Are you really gonna listen to the opinion of this hell dwelling, village pillaging creature? We should be hanging and burning him in the name of Eris, not giving him a trial!" The fat bastard spouted as he had a smug grin on his face.

The gavel was banged 3 times before the Judge, "Lord Alderp, although you are the defendant of an attempted assassination, you are in court! You will hold your tongue until given permission to." the judge tried to sort him out after his outburst…

"Oh don't worry, I'll hold my tongue now. I apologise...Oh yeah, where's the last 2 months worth of rent from your family cottage far down south, you know I don't like waiting…" That fat bastard is going for blackmail…

The judge took in a deep breath before replying, "We will not discuss this now, please stay focused…"

"Right, right. We'll save it for later. Just don't whine when your grandsons and granddaughters are out on the street…" The bastard said as that last line was mumbled enough for me to hear…

"Right well, Prosecutor Sena, I apologise for the interuption. Is there any more evidence for you to bring out?" The judge said as he seems mentally tired from this court.

"Yes there is. I present the third and final form of evidence. Myself!!" She said as the people in the background look at her with a confused look.

"Yesterday at the crack of dawn I interrogated Tsukiyo Nakano, and while he was "absent" from the questioning, I did learn that he in fact does have ties with the Demon King! At the time of interrogation the Magic Lie detector was present, and caught the lie that said that Tsukiyo was not in contact with someone in the Demon King Army!" Sena said this on a venomous tone.

It wouldn't be long before the fat pig spoke up, "That's all the evidence we need from this trial! Families in the court, protect your children and loved ones! We don't know what type of magic resides in that demon! Especially that Arm that secretes the unholy magic the plagues the world in constant chaos! Guards! seize that dem-"

"Oh shut the hell up…" I spoke after my long silence of taking shot after shot of being a demon…

"You humans are always the same...blame the demons, blame the different skin color, blame this and that...you all rely on cowardice and never want to take responsibility of your own faults.Look in the mirror and take off those rose tinted glasses, not everything is at fault because of demons. And Besides! I'm not even a full demon, just half while the other is human!"

"So if you want to kill me, hang me, and use me as a means to blame this shitty world that you live in then fine go ahead! Just know that I won't hold back even you have a family!" I shouted in anger as I broke the cuffs around my hand, summoned Yamato, and proceeded to expand my energy to its full potential. Guards started to surround me and my teammates with shields and swords/lances.

"What the hell are you doing!? If you're gonna start a war then don't drag us in on it! I still want to live and have a harem for myself! I'm too young to die!!" The brat in green shouted at me as he was starting to shake my left arm furiously.

"Back Off! I'll settle this situation in one cut!" I said as I threw him off my arm and focused on my Sword. I grabbed the scabbard with my left and held the grip with my right, I just needed one cut…

"--Hold on!" a shout was heard, but it was from the mouth of the glutton.

"Hey Aqua, you have some kind of evidence to help Tsukiyo out in this situation right? Go on, tell them!" The brat in green replied hopefully, the blue haired glutton is named Aqua? It's a shame that a nice name is tied down to an animal like that.

"Hah? Oh, no not really, I Just felt like saying that, was pretty cool- Owowowow!" She started to cry out in pain when the brat started to squeeze her head with his fists.

"Guards stand down! And Accused, you stand down as well! There is no decisive judgement yet, so for the time being both sides will not say another word until further notice!" The judge was at his limit as he shouted with all the frustration in his body while banging his gavel with force.

The guards around sheath their swords/lances and shields while backing off. I made the Yamato disappear out of my hand.

"Lord Alderp. While we understand the severity of a situation like this, you have no right to order an unauthorized execution while the verdict is still unclear. One more outburst like that and we will claim the accused not guilty, and have the repairs for your mansion sign under _your_ name, are we clear?" The judge said as the fat bastard laid back into his seat and didn't say another word.

The judge cleared his throat and asked me, "Now young man, after that sudden outburst of prejudice and attempted execution what do you, the accused, have to say."

I took in a deep breath and repeated myself "I will continue to say what I've said in the very beginning. I am NOT a minion of the Demon King Army. I do NOT have any ties with any Demon Army Generals that wish to cause harm or damage to the town that my party and I reside in. While I may be a demon, a half one to be technical, I have no intentions of causing any harm or damages to anyone or anything in the town for as long as I live. Besides, you should take my word for it since the lie detector hasn't caught any lies as of right now."

While everyone was yelling, and almost about to die from me, not once did the lie detector ring out.

" _Sigh,_ In situations like this where the result are not clear, we have no choice but to postpone the trial for another day. While the lie detector is a valuable item in certain situations, as of right now, I can not consider it legitimate evidence." The judge said as he wiped his head from sweat and continued, "Tsukiyo Nakano, due to the strength of the evidence presented, I find the accused not guilty-" The judge was cut off once more by the lardass of a Landlord

"Your honor, I apologize for the rude interruption but this demon IS affiliated with the Demon King, he is one of their Minions sent by him to disrupt the peace held in this town. Sentence him to a hanging." The landlord continued to argue

Sena, who was right next to him was now changing tunes from going against me, to somehow wanting me to avoid death, "Um...no one died in this incident...I Don't think death should be…"

The landlord had a smug grin on, "Your right, let me do the hanging. I have all the necessary gear to do so…"

The brat in green shouted out, "Hey that's not fair! Are we really gonna ignore what he just said!?"

I would've paid more attention to what he said, but was distracted by a trace of...demonic magic?

"I feel the presence of evilness coming from someone!" Aqua shouted as she stood in the middle of the courtroom, "Someone here is attempting to use evil magic to twist the facts of this trial!" I guess she can be useful from time to time…

"Evil presence? You mean someone here is trying to tamper with the judgement of this sacred trial!?" The judge said in a furious tone, he looked over towards me when he finished this sentence.

Aqua seemed to be searching around as if she was a bloodhound "Yes, but it is not Tsukiyo, he has a different type of presence from him. This one is a much more sinister presence, a full demon possibly! Believe it or not, My eyes are much more accurate then that magic item, for I am Aqua! Goddess of the Axis cult with more than 10 million devoted ones in this worl-"

 _Ding*_

Well, at least know the lie detector actually works…

Aqua started to tear up while blubbering, "Hey, that was actually the truth! This lie detector is a fraud!"

The judge had no pity for her as she was crying from shame, "Accused, please choose your counsel more carefully. She doesn't seem to be the smartest of your bunch…" Aqua would soon drag herself back over to where we were and plop down on her seat sadly.

"Noted" Me, the brat, and the child said at the same time. As much as we hope for it, I don't think she'll ever get smart.

The judge resumed his statement from before he was disrupted, " Accused Tsukiyo Nakano, for having possible ties to the Demon King and attempted assassination of Lord Alderp, we find you guilty and sentence you to Death by hanging." The judge said as he banged the gavel signalling the choice finaliza- WHAT THE HELL?!

The guards that previously surrounded us were back and had their weapons drawn towards us.

"Your honor, what happened to your statement before the disruption from the fat bastard! You said I was not guilty from lack of evidence strength! Where's that statement!" I shouted as the judge looked away, "The sentence is final, no other statements will be presented"

Alright then, I guess I'm back from fighting my way out.

I summoned Yamato one more time to fight my way out, I wasn't alone this time since the brat and child pulled their weapons out as well.

"Hey! What kind of rigged trial is this!? I'm not letting a friend of mine bite the dust from some dumb accusations!" The brat yelled as he pulled out a nearly blunted short sword, the child on the other hand had no staff with her but proceeded to chant out magic, "You guys want to see a terrorist? Fine! I'll show you what a true terrorist is capable of!" Although I don't know why, I feel as if I was right on something…

"Hey! Let me purify the evil presence here, its smells stuffy!" Aqua shouted even though she wasn't reading the mood

"No spells allowed in court, it interferes with the lie detector." The judge said, Sena would soon shout towards the guards, "SEIZE THEM!"

I started to channel most of my energy towards Yamato again and focused...11 guards… one cut. I unsheath my sword from its scabbard and was about to kill 11 guards...

Once again, I was about to unleash my power onto the guards that were surrounding me, but was now disrupted by another shout.

"Your honor, please take a look at this!" Darkness said as she held out a pendant that look very valuable...almost as if it was nobility…

Before I even knew it, everyone's eyes, including the judge and lardass, where towards us. The guards that were surrounding us were now on one knee with their head down towards Darkness.

"I-Is...Is that…!?" The judge was speechless as well as Sena and fatass who were just standing there dumbfounded.

Darkness spoke in a tone that could make you believe that she was a noble even if she was one, "I'm sorry, but can you suspend this trial? I don't mean to throw the case out, but I just need some time to prove that my...companion is innocent. Of course, I will ask him to compensate for the damages done to the mansion."

Everyone wasn't moving an inch, it was if time had froze and the only ones unaffected were us five.

"U-uh, even if you request for this...I-I don't…" The judge was stuttering as he was trying to reply, But Darkness spoke even more.

"Alderp, although you are the victim in this situation, can you wait a little longer for the trial results? You can count this as a favour from me, and I can do anything for you as long as it's within my means."

"Wait..An...Anything!?" The fatass started to pant similarly to how Darkness would when she was in heat.

He sat back in his chair and cleared his throat saying, "Alright, just this one time I will grant more time to this demon to prove himself…"

We were soon allowed to leave court, and as soon as we were away from the courtroom and somewhere more private where the 3 of us could talk.

"Hey what was that just now? Does that fat ass have some connection to you?" I asked her, "Yeah he does. Ever since I was young he's always had an obsession towards me. He'd ask me multiple times for my hand in marriage, but my father always turned him down because of age differences…"

The brat was next, "Are...Are you gonna be alright? I mean he was panting and almost doing the same thing you'd do when your turned on. I mean, you did promise him anything so…"

"Yeah, I know, but I'll be fine. Just wait for me when I get back." She said this in a sad smile, as we soon headed towards the prison cells to get the child and glutton out of there for attempted use of spells inside the court.

As we were walking down and heading towards the cells, told Darkness, "You should be glad of what you did earlier." She look at me for a second before blushing, "O-oh it's...nothing really..I mean you are my companion so it's only natural to-" I cut her off before she got the wrong idea, "No not because of the companion thing. It's because if you stopped everyone one second later, you guys would've witnessed 11 guards get murdered."

The brat who was walking to the right of me said, "Ok, you belong in here if you're a gonna say stuff like that. Seriously…"

(Man, did this chapter take a lot longer because of having to reread almost all of my chapters written just to find some things to say against Tsukiyo/Vergil in the trial.

I can't really leave a message for Auxiliary Nexus since this entire chapter answers his questions...so...yeah...

For YukiMegi who posted a review on Sep 15: Thanks for leaving a review, but when I was thinking up the thought process for the dickbag guards, I was just thinking "I'm gonna have to kick Tsukiyo down HARD" and that's what I did. Why? To make him a better-ish character because in my perspective, to make a good character, you gotta make him suffer bad to make him stronger just from getting back up from shit-uations that would normally make people want to quit. Call it cheesy, I don't care, it's the route I'm gonna make Tsukiyo take.

For the Guest Account that posted a review on Sep. 15: Thanks for leaving a review, and this is sort of surprising for me to hear since I always thought of them as brothers that were at least 1 year apart in terms of age. Yeah, I assumed that Vergil was the oldest because of the way he acts, but almost twins? Man, that caught me sort of off guard.

For Rift Hero that posted a Review on Sep 16: Yeah, for Tsukiyo in his normal form, it's just gonna be the spiritual Vergil. And for Vergil when he takes over, his DT won't entirely exist since him taking over is essentially DT 2.0. Sorry, not sorry for any disappointed expectations…

For the LordofTee (or Tea?) posting a review on Sep 16: I am grateful for this review, and it got me to think about it for a good week, and to this day I feel like I still don't have a good enough answer to reply you with so I'll just say this: For the 2nd half of your first sentence, "I do not agree with you because yes although Tsukiyo may feel like a Kazuma 2.0 or place-in for Kazuma, he is not like Kazuma whatsoever", I would like to say that, but the more I think about how Kazuma thinks and what I write down for Tsukiyo, the more I feel like it is a Kazuma 2.0. So I'll just leave it at this: I'll try to not have Tsukiyo be like Kazuma, and be more of his own character, not sure how I'll do that, but I'll find out how. As for the party dynamics and everyone having an actual role, that I can get behind 100% I can sort of understand why you say that because in the game Nero is sort of a one man army that's capable of handling himself, so I guess I subconsciously added that in to Tsukiyo, thank you for catching it early on and letting me know. Also if you have time, can you tell me which chapters goes almost identical with that idea? And don't say the entire Fic, that's just gonna make me flip a table...

P.S: college is still kicking my ass, but the DMCV Dante gameplay and KH3 trailer made it 100x better...


	25. A Snowy Battle and Unexpected Attack

It had been a week since the rigged trial took place and the blond girl, Darkness, had left yesterday to head to the fatass' place. During this week, Tsukiyo still hasn't woken up and I'm starting to get suspicious of the situation…

From one night of nearly getting beaten to death and stabbed, of course you'd need time to recover, but it shouldn't take more than a week just to get back to 100%. I know that this isn't the first time he's almost died, but I guess nearly dying multiple times is starting to take a toll on him whether it be physical or psychological...

"Hey, is Darkness back yet? Part of me feels like she should've been back a while ago…" Aqua, the false goddess said as she was laying down bored on the couch of front of the fireplace.

At this point, no one had a clue on what she was doing. The brat in green, who was now known as Kazuma, just stared blankly at the ceiling like a vegetable before holding his head a shouting.

"Ahhhhhh!!" Me and Aqua just looked at him like the insane person he was

"I really don't feel like asking, but if it'll get you to stop then I'll just ask, What the hell are you doing?" I asked regrettably

"What's with all the shouting?" The child who was called, Megumin, asked while holding a small black cat.

I wasn't sure why, but I could sense something from that cat...It feels..intense…

"Oh, you want to keep that cat here?" Kazuma asked now that he was almost sane again and not screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Yeah, He's a good child so I thought I'd be okay with everyone if he stayed here. Is that fine?" she asked in a cautious tone, I have no problems with animals as long as they stay away from me

"I don't think anyone here has cat allergies or something like that so it should be fine...What's its name?" Kazuma asked as the cat started to play with it's index finger, but as soon as Aqua got near it hissed and swiped its claws at her.

"Ow! Why did it swipe me!? I'm not sure if it's the black coat or the demonic eyes, but something feels off about it...I can feel an evil presence from it…" Aqua speculated as she was eyeing the cat intensely until the cat swiped again nearly got her eye swiped…

When I got closer to it, I started to understand what she meant about a presence, it wasn't evil but careless...in a sense, it felt sort of familiar to a certain inferior red coated demon…

As I was thinking to myself, the cat seemed to be nuzzling its head near my demon arm while purring, "Oh Hey, I guess it like Tsuki...er, Vergil the most…" Kazuma said as he was smiling towards the cat.

...As much as I wouldn't like to admit it, this isn't too bad...

"It's name is Chomusuke…"Megumin said while the cat was still purring on my arm.

That's the worst name I've ever heard of from a weird owner with a weird name.

"But the cat's a girl, right? I don't think that, that names suits her…" Kazuma asked but was stubbornly rejected by Megumin, "No. It's name is Chomusuke."

"It must be very hard for you with a owner like that…" Kazuma whispered and gave a look of sympathy towards "Chomusuke" while she looked at him confused. After he was done whispering to it, he got a leftover fish from lunch earlier and gave it to her.

It sniffed it for a moment before grabbing it with it's paw, breathing fire on it and eating it. I've seen some weird and questionable things in my time, so this isn't new to me. Kazuma though…

"Hey, tell me I wasn't the only one who saw that…" He started to question as he couldn't believe what he saw

"Saw what?" Aqua asked as she started to kneel and look at the cat while it ate.

"It spat fire. The cat can spit fire…(1)" Kazuma started to look more intensely at Chomusuke

"Kazuma cat's don't spit fire, they look cute and are used for cuddling," Aqua said, "Are you sure you've had enough sleep?"

"I'm not going insane! Vergil, you were closer to the cat, Tell me you saw that!" Kazuma said while trying to convince the others.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about…" I said as I stepped away from him, "Besides, why were you screaming? I doubt you've gone insane, since that was already taken by Tsukiyo…"

"Hey! Out of everyone here, I'm the most sane person! After that would probably be Tsukiyo. It's just Darkness I'm a bit worried about…" Kazuma said while he started to pace back and forth

"If you're worried about her safety then don't. She chose this herself, so she'll have to deal with it. Besides, she an Adventurer like you guys, she can handle herself." I said to him as he was still pacing back and forth.

Even though I did say that, for some reason I got this sense of unease. This might be Tsukiyo's emotion, if it is then it's good to know that's he somewhat aware of what's going on.

"Vergil's right, Darkness isn't a defenseless person. Even though she can't hit anything, she is the strongest and most durable of us. You should have some faith in her Kazuma…"

"You guys don't get it!" He said as if we weren't listening to him, "This is Darkness were talking about! The one who takes pleasure from pain and humiliation! Tell me if this sounds right, 'Ugh! Even if you're being so forceful with me, I'll never yield to a horrible man like yourself! Even if you deflower my body, I'll never yield!' " He finished imitating Darkness while Megumin and Aqua soon had a look of realisation. I almost forgot she's like that too...

Now it was their turn to hold their heads shouting, it's a good thing I plugged my ears before they did...

"Wh-wh-what should we do!? Darkness might be in Danger!" Megumin said as she was now freaking out…

"Well already been one night, so It's already too late to do something. It's like I said before, Don't worry about her. She did this herself, so she can handle this herself…" I repeated myself as Megumin was still freaking out.

"Vergil, how could you be so cruel?! She's our companion!" Megumin said as she wasn't happy with what I said, Kazuma stepped in before I could reply. Besides, she Tsukiyo's Companion, NOT mine…

"No Megumin, he's right, We're too late. All we can do now is wait for her to come back and be gentle to her when she does...It's the least we can do…" Kazuma said as he looked sad

"Oh Darkness, how could you ascend to womanhood without us... _sob sob_ " Aqua said she started to feel bad for Darkness

These guys need to stop overreacting…

A shout would soon be heard coming from the front of the mansion along with Door being opened roughly, "Tsukiyo Nakano! Where are you Tsukiyo!"

It was the prosecutor Sena as she walked over towards the 4 of us while giving us a glare.

"I'm Sorry, but there is still time before the trial resumes and you do not have a warrant for entering the accused's mansion, so I'm gonna have to cut you down…" I said as I stopped her from coming any closer from the 4 of us.

"Cut the bullshit! You're still under suspicion so local authority have the right to come in without a warrant! Besides the point, you guys really have the nerve to cause such a mess!" Sena spat as she was still glaring at us.

"Alright, then tell me: What mess did we cause, and by we, I mean them," I said as I pointed over to my "companions", "What did they do this time?"

"You're really trying to pin the blame on them, huh? Despicable…" Sena said

"I'm not trying to blame them, I just have a gut feeling…" I said as I got in Sena's face, she didn't speak but she did move back an inch or two.

She cleared her throat before saying what she wanted to say, "A-Anyways...the toads...the toads that were originally hibernating underground for the winter suddenly surfaced and started attacking the town. We received multiple complaints of the toads destroying farms, eating livestock, and attacking citizens."

"And you want us to clean up the mess before things get ugly do you? Are you sure you want a demon like me helping out? What if I accidentally control them and send them to the station?" I asked sarcastically

Sena was not amused, she didn't blow a fuse surprisingly but replied with, "I know it wasn't you per se, but rather a certain wizard with an expertise in Explosion Magic…"

I used my Demon Arm to grab ahold of Aqua who tried to run away by using Snatch on her and latching onto that thick skull of hers while Kazuma made himself useful by grabbing Megumin collar before she ran away.

"Let's go for a walk, shall we?" I said while holding back my strength making sure not to pop that false goddess' head open like a grape. Kazuma held Megumin in a headlock and dragged her with him.

"Ow! Ow! Hey! You should treat a goddess with more respect! Let go! I'm sorry, it was all Megumin's fault!" Aqua said while trying to tear off my death grip on her head.

"Hey, the Mastermind was Aqua! She said she wanted to blow some steam off for getting put into a cell by those guards! She said she'd take care of things after!" Megumin said while Kazuma was dragging her by the head, Chomusuke was left behind while this was happening.

"Shut the hell up and go clean up this shit you caused!" Me and Kazuma said in unison.

Sena was just watching us manhandle them out the door, speechless. The snow outside had already covered the ground so that made things 2x harder.

It had been about 30-40 minutes after leaving the mansion and we finally arrived at a field where there was just about almost a dozen of Toads roaming around the field filled with snow and small patches of ice.

Aqua was still squirming in my grip and started to do it more violently when she saw the toads in the distance, "No! NO! Please! I don't want to fight them! I still remember the last time we did! It ended up horribly! Please! I'm sorry! Don't make me face them alone!" Aqua cried as she was begging for mercy.

I threw Aqua headfirst into the snow and stood in place, "Your problem, your fight. Go"

She got up from face planting in the snow, grabbed the bottom of my shirt and continued to beg, "Please don't make me fight them! How could you say this to a pretty girl like me! Let alone a Goddess!"

I spat to the side of her as she begged, "What pretty girl? All I see is Kazuma, Megumin, Sena, some ugly toads. Besides you're not goddess, the trial proved it..."

Aqua had a facial expression like she just got backstabbed and stopped grabbing my shirt while sobbing quietly on the snow.

"Hey Megumin," I called out, "It's looks like there's a group of Toads on the right, If we use Aqua for bait we should be able to round them up and kill them all together with your explosion, how does that sound?"

"I will wait for your call!" Megumin said determinedly as she stopped resisting Kazuma's headlock.

"Megumin! Are you really gonna abandon me here!? What about our deal!?" Aqua shouted as she felt hurt from a "betrayal"

"You heard her, she's waiting on you…" I said coldly, Aqua tried to run away from me, which was a really bad move…

I used my demon arm to grab the back if her shirt and threw her with enough force over towards the toads where screamed her lungs out she landed right next to them. As soon as she landed, all of them looked at her for a moment before she started running, shouting, and wailing while the toads followed behind her.

I turned towards Kazuma, "Hey, aside from your dagger and "ability" what can you do in this situation?" He seemed to be confused when I asked him that, "Hey, I thought we were letting them deal with this themselves, why do I need to be involved?" he asked.

"There's no chance of this plan working if Aqua get swallowed before all the toads are gathered, so we might need backup bait if that does happen" He went pale as soon as I said that, Sena cut in on the conversation and tried to scold me, "One of your comrades is getting chased by multiple toads and your thinking of using Satou Kazuma as bait if she gets swallowed!? What kind of person are you!? This is low, even for a demon!"

I turned towards her and responded to her criticisms, "Sena, no offense, but tell me...How long have you been an adventurer? How many demons have you killed? Any monsters? No? Didn't think so. Believe me when I say this, because of the fact that my father was the Dark Knight, me and my brother were confronted many times by demons, even at a young age. So for majority of my life, I've been slaughtering all of them in my way, alone. Trust my instincts, this is the most efficient plan there is. While you may be older than me in age, you're decades behind me in terms of combat and strategics…"

Sena didn't have the guts to respond, she just looked to the ground and looked dejected.

I turned back to Kazuma who wasn't pale anymore, but looked a bit more ready for combat. "Hey, I just remembered something! I learned a couple of some bow skills from a friend of mine. I don't think I need to be bait, I could just pick off a couple of them that get too close to Aqua."

"Good thinking," It wasn't really, but I'll let him have this, "but do you have enough range to do so?" I asked

"Don't worry! The bow skill that I got is based off my luck skill, I think I can shoot pretty far and accurate because of it! I'm going to climb this tree to get a vantage point." Kazuma said as he started to climb a large tree and get a pretty high vantage point.

As Kazuma drew his bow and was about to shoot his arrow, he yelled down to where Me, Sena, and Megumin were waiting, "Hey! Aqua's getting eaten!" Huh, that lasted longer than I expected…

Sena looked dumbfounded when he shouted that, "What happened to having faith in your plans!? You're companions getting eaten!"

"I was talking about myself when I fight, I never said anything about teamplay…" I said with a smug on my face, "But yeah, I may as well get her out before she actually gets swallowed."

I started sprinting over to where Aqua was getting eaten and shouted behind me, "Hey Kazuma, pick off any toads that aren't near the group! Megumin, start the chanting and get ready to use your spell!"

"Hey! What about your weapons! You didn't get any of Tsukiyo's Gear!" Kazuma shouted, I was already too far to respond, but didn't need to, I had Yamato and a couple of tricks up my sleeve to survive a situation like this.

By the time I reached Aqua who was being eaten by the toads, all I could see was her boots sticking out of one of the toads mouth.

(For those wondering about the reference link for this chapter, I just realised that links dont work...wish someone could've told me about it earlier...Just look up 'DMC4SE Vergil Moveset' by Draethion. All moveset references will be from his vids only)

While still sprinting, I summoned Yamato, unsheathed it and rushed towards the Toad with a barrage of slashes following me before I launched myself into the air (Rising Star 0:55). The slashes behind me that followed hit the stomach of the toad that had Aqua in it and made it stop eating ner for the moment. Since I was in the air, I was high enough to grab Aqua's foot, drag her out of the mouth using my demon arm and throw her a couple of feet away from the toads and towards the direction of the others.

As soon as Aqua knew that she was no longer in the toads mouth, she used all the strength she had to run straight towards the group while not looking back leaving a trail of slime that lead to a small puddle.

I was still in the air with no momentum to let me dodge away from the mouths of the toads, so I had to used one of my "tricks" to escape and make sure I don't end up like Aqua. I summoned a small sword that was light blue and slightly transparent and launched it near the area where I threw Aqua, and warped there (Summoned Sword 7:09 (2)

I didn't like using my magic at situations like this since it takes a small fraction of mana and takes away the time that lets me control this body.

As soon as I landed, I made a break for the direction of the group to make sure Megumin could use her spell and let us get out of here, but as I was about to run I slipped on something and hit the ground.

I looked to see what it was and saw a puddle of slime. I couldn't get mad and waste my time on this since there was about 9 toads heading towards me.

I slipped on the the slime another 2 times before being able it get up and run. Since the toads were too close, I had to use more of my magic to make sure they didn't get any nearer. I used up more of my magic to summon more swords to stop them by summoning a lot them above the toads and have them impale them to the ground (Heavy Rain Swords 7:52.) Although the swords were now a medium size, this ability couldn't hurt them in any way, it would only make them hold still for 30 seconds.

At this point, with the amount of mana I used for those 2 abilities, I could guess that I lost about an hour of control time.

Now that the toads were impaled, I had a small window to try and escape before the swords disappear.

Since I wasn't focused on what was around me, I was cut off from the party by 2 toads that were to the left and right of me.

I was about to draw the Yamato again and cut them down to size, but the toad on the left mysteriously dropped dead and fell to the side. When I saw its back, it was riddled with arrows, meaning Kazuma actually killed one. Another 3-4 arrows would soon hit the toad in the right, but it was aimed more towards the head and its eyes.

3 of the arrows hit the back of its head, while one of them hit the right eye.

It started to freak out for a bit from being blinded and started hopping towards the group and crashed into it.

I continued to run closer and closer to the group, but was still not far enough for the spell to not affect me. I made a gamble at this time to either get me out unscathed or have me get caught in the crossfire. "Megumin! Fire it!" I yelled multiple times to make sure she heard me.

When she finished preparing and fired off her spell, I summoned another small dagger and had it launch towards the tree that Kazuma was sniping from. I wasn't sure if it was out of range or not, but I had to take that chance.

I waited another 2-3 seconds and was starting to feel the intense heat catch up and feel the earth tremble violently, I was pretty sure I was about to get caught in the blast, but somehow escaped it from my Dagger getting caught in the tree and warping there.

I was now out of breath from having to run away from the toads and not get caught in the explosion that was casted.

"There…." I said while panting, "They're all dead. Let's go back…"

"We're done now!?" Aqua said with joy while still covered in slime, as if she forgot what happened a couple of minutes ago.

Sena looked around to confirm that all the toads were dead, "Yeah. I guess the situation's been handled. Good work."

There was a sudden rumble from the ground as soon as she finished that sentence.

20ft ahead of us, we saw 5 more toads rise up from the ground and head towards us at full speed.

"OH COME ON! Why won't you guys just leave us alone!" Aqua shouted as she rushed towards one of the toads. She raised her fist in the air and started to glow red with fire slowly forming around it.

"God Blow! Feel the wrath of a Goddess' Pain and Fu-" She never got to finish that sentence since she got eaten by one of the toads that didn't pay any attention to her.

"Goddammit that idiot!" Kazuma shouted as he saw that happen from the treetop.

"Ummm, don't wanna alarm you guys but I could some rescuing...like right now…" Megumin said with not much emotion in her voice as she was almost completely eaten by a toad with her head sticking out form the top.

Ok, this situation went to shit really, really fast...I need to think of a plan…

"Hey! Sena!" Kazuma shouted from the treetop, "We need you to attract the attention of one of the toads so we can get out of here as soon as possible. Vergil! Get Aqua and Megumin outta here!" He finished his sentence and started firing rapidly at the toads around the soon to be eaten Aqua.

Even though I don't like taking orders from people, especially a brat like Kazuma, we had no choice.

Sena said in a confused voice, "H-Hey! I'm just here to observe you guys on your combat, not help with a fight! Do you really plan on using me as bait for the toads?!"

"If you're only here to observe and not help then you're a liability. Get out of here and wait until its safe. I'll handle this myse-" I was soon cut off by a shout heard in the distance...

"Light of Saber!"

Just as the shout was heard, the toad that was eating Aqua was split in half by a beam of light, freeing her in the process.

Another shout by the same person was heard, "Energy Ignition!"

This time, all 4 of the toads that were near Aqua were now caught in a whirlwind of intense concentrated fire.

Seeing that there was only one left, that was eating (?) Megumin, was hit with a stream of lightning from above that hit the back side of the toad making sure it wasn't going to hit Megumin.

There were no more toads in the field and there were no tremors in the ground that signaled more of them to come.

I made the Yamato disappear to conserve mana to last another 30 minutes as the person who was shouting those spells soon walked up to us.

Strangely enough, our "savior" was a small girl in a robe, black blouse, and pink skirt that held a small wand in her hand as she glared at something behind us.

Kazuma climbed down from the tree and soon saved Megumin by pulling her out of the toads mouth. It seemed that he shared some energy with her since she was now able to stand up and grab her staff that was inside of the toads mouth.

Megumin soon went face to face with the girl that was glaring at her, Kazuma would ask if she her since she was glaring straight at her.

"I don't know who this is but thanks for saving us, now if you'll excuse me we're leaving…"

"Ehh!? Megumin you're really mean for pulling a joke like that!" The young girl complained.

Kazuma soon stepped forward and said "Thank you for saving us, we're grateful for that but...how do you know Megumin?"

"Oh! Let me introduce myself!" The girl said excitedly, she then stood back, did a pose and introduced herself.

"My name is Yunyun! I am the 2nd best student in the Crimson Magic Academy! My longtime rival and #1 Student of the Academy is Megumin! I've trained hard enough to be able to use top tier magic freely, and now that I can do so, we can finally settle this longtime rivalry between us!"

Megumin wanted to walk off and get back to the mansion, but was stopped when Kazuma grabbed her robe collar and asked, "She said something important, we can't ignore this…"

I mean, we can always do so if we wanted to live a normal life like Tsukiyo said, but hey I guess his opinion doesn't matter…

"I'm sorry, but you might be mistaken for another person. I honestly don't know you.."Megumin said while trying not to make any eye contact.

Yunyun, would try to look the shy girl in the eyes and question her, "Are you sure? I mean you can't forget our times in the courtyard where we always ate lunch and made bets. My bet had to be good enough to challenge you so I always bet my lunch and you always won every time…"

I decided to not listen in on the conversation anymore sensing that they're gonna do rinse and repeat what they're saying…

But something feels off...like something is watch us with bloodlust…

I looked around us and saw nothing, nothing in the tree lines in the distance, nothing in the open field, nothing from above. There were no toads left around and no tremors that indicated more…

I knew this feeling from somewhere...

Before I was able to pinpoint where that feeling was coming from we got attacked, but it was mainly Yunyun that got aimed for.

A surge of ice shard were coming at her rapidly from the ground, and she was unaware of it from her conversation with Megumin.

"Watch out!" I shouted while moving her out of the way.

When the ice shards from the ground reached where Yunyun just was, it shot up and formed multiple ice pillars that would've killed her instantly.

I frantically looked around to see where the ice came from and still saw nothing, until it formed from the snow and came out from the ground with heavy tremors coming from 75 ft ahead of us...

I instantly recognised it and so did Tsukiyo if he was watching...

(Gonna leave you with that cliffhanger even though you instantly know what it is if you've played DMC4, but just know that it won't be simple because I put in a big-ish twist. wait, does me mentioning that make it more obvious...shit…oh well, if you've played DMC before, you know what it is...but there's more with it...feel free to guess

Also, I was going to post 2 chapters today, but because I'm not satisfied with 26 yet, its gonna be rewritten and posted next week with chapter 27.

For the review that YukiMegi posted on Sep. 22: Thanks for leaving another review, and yeah...that's just Aqua being normal so nothing surprising there...But she will have her moments that'll make her a bit more likable like the time from the Destroyer.

For the Guest account that posted a review in spanish on Sep. 23: It's a good thing I can understand spanish because of me being Latino irl, you're welcome for the chapters that I posted but still feel like they could be better. Darkness as of right now, isn't in love with Tsukiyo...yet. She likes him as a comrade and teammate, but there's only small hints of likeness. As for why though, I'll give multiple examples: 1) He basically saved her from getting beheaded from the Beldia boss fight, 2) He basically caused a "love" flag on his trip with Dust that made both of them slightly aware, but I feel like this is a bit of a stretch, 3) He, sort of, scolded Darkness when the _bathroom incident_ ( ͡ ͜ʖ ͡) happened, because he was caring enough to do so. This was also sort of a "love" flag since it sort of Tsukiyo showed genuine care for her health instead of shrugging it off. 4) Tsukiyo is starting to accept the fact that he might like her at the end of Chap. 22 because of the amount of care Darkness showed when she actually thought that he died since he almost died about 6-7 times. I feel like I did a pretty bad job at the end and could've made things better on my end, but since it's already published I can't do much but build upon it. I know what you mean when you say that Darkness doesn't seem to be Tsukiyo's type, I've gotten reviews that told me that, but after another 60-70 chapters (I think) of them getting closer I think he'll slowly accept her fully. Just gotta think logically and make think of the right choices/interactions. I'm sorry if I misread anything, please tell me if I did.

For LightnigJack (or LightiningJack) that posted a review on Sep. 24: Thanks for your opinion and enjoy the next chapters!

For Rift Hero that posted a review that wasn't a guest account this time on Sep. 25: Thanks for the review, and yeah, to be completely honest, I have no idea what Vergil acts like, because just like Tsukiyo, I only played 4 and not the rest (DmC doesn't count even though I played it.) I have some crash course knowledge on the lore, but that's about it. I literally looked him up on wikia, saw his personality, and tried to replicate it. The Vergil in this world can't really say some of the things he says in DMC since he technically is almost the strongest demon if you think about it. The "Humans are scum" and "Why do you protect them Dante?" will still be applied and shown in the future, just like you saw back in the trial for calling out humans for being cowards/easily blaming demons and inside the Destroyer when he made the portal and wanted to abandon the adventurers, but it'll bit more subtle. Besides, if I went with Pure Vergil instead of my Modified Vergil, Kazuma and Co. probably would've died by now, like you said, from the amount of BS that happened or just be flat out irrelevant for going solo and taking over Tsukiyo's body.

Also, if you like the Vergil in the this chapter, you might like the interactions in the next one…

P.S: for LordOfTee, if you're still reading, there will be much more teamplay in them next chapter, the one on this chapter was not much of an attempt. Not sure if it'll be good enough, but there will be some in the next one.

Reference:

1 - Watch for Chomusuke's new Mixtape coming out in 3 weeks, "Other Half..." over on iTunes and Play Store. She's got bars like you've never heard before…(For those who read the LN, you know what the "Other Half" means…)

2 - You know, if you think about it...the way Vergil warps sort of reminds me of Minato's ability, in Naruto, and how he was able to teleport around the battlefield/world with his custom made Kunai's/jitsu's...pretty neat...


	26. Bael and Dagon, Master's of the Ice!

What formed from the snow were demons that were familiar to both me and Tsukiyo. He fought them in the game, I fought them in reality.

What we saw ahead of us form from the snow were all black and lizard like creatures that could control ice. They had ice claws on their left hand and an ice like shield for their entire right arm.

They were Frost demons, and they were created by the bastard Mundus…

It would've been challenging enough to handle them alone with this team, of course Megumin, Sena, and Aqua are of no use at this time, but at least Yunyun and Kazuma could fight and hold them off but….

"Well, well, well. If it isn't a son of the Dark Knight Sparda…" A large white toad said as his ice on his back, head, and mouth which glistened with slime. "...And it's the Inferior brother too, what luck…" Another toad said right behind him in the same colour scheme. It was Bael and Dagon, the Ice Master's. Compared to the toads that we faced off earlier, both of them makes the the normal toads look like childsplay…

As soon as Aqua saw the size of the Toads and their figures, it didn't take long for her to run away from here as fast as she could, "NOPE! NOPE! I've already had enough of those toads! I don't want to face their king's!" She shouted from the top of her lungs as she ran.

Kazuma was just about on the same boat as her, "Hey, wait up! Don't leave me behind with these things!"

"Let her leave, she's useless at this time. You, me and Yunyun will fight them right here, right now." I said to Kazuma seriously "Excuse me, but what was that?" Kazuma said confusedly.

Compared to the enemies we've fought before, they were just minor enemies. But now that there are 2 boss' here, 1 slip up could easily mean death from the either the boss' or the Frost's.

"Sena, Megumin. Leave right now and Follow Aqua, we'll handle this…" I told them, Sena tried to argue back when she heard me say this, "Hey! Don't try and be a hero, 3 adventurer's can't-" I cut her off before she could say anything else, "I don't think you know the severity of this situation, Leave now before you become liabilities! I won't be held responsible if you get eaten or killed!"

Sena took a step back and looked offended for a moment before breathing in, "Ok, fine. We'll leave…" She walked passed Megumin with a pissed off face headed to where Aqua ran. Megumin followed behind her and looked back at us before walking off with Sena.

"Hold on, a-are we really gonna do this!? We barely survived fighting off toads, how do you expect us to-" Kazuma would ask in a flurry from fear, "Shut up and listen! Your swordsmanship is terrible and you're somewhat decent at archery, climb back up the tree and provide cover. Aim for their feelers on the top of their heads." I told him sternly, on the top of the toads head were 2 feelers similar to an angler fish, but the bulb's were replaced with a light blue silhouette of a woman on each feeler. "Don't get distracted from the from the women, that's how they easily get you." I added in as I saw him eyeing them faintly.

Yunyun who was right next to me was trembling from fear and visibly scared, it was probably from the appearance of them that caught her off guard.

"Hey! Quit shaking, fear won't do any good if you let it consume you!" I told her, she replied with a shaky voice, "Y-yeah...I'll t-try not t-to…"

"Tell me," I asked her, "What good are you gonna do if your scared of something like this? If you'd like to, then go cower in fear with Megumin and Aqua for all I care. You say you're the #2 at your academy, but all I see is a failed attempt…" I turned my back on her and started walking towards the demons…

"Geez, Do you really have to be so cold to poor kid? You're personality is just as cold as those ugly freaks …" A voice called out, I didn't recognise it at first, but as soon as I saw where it came from, my blood started to boil.

A red coat was seen coming out from behind the tree that Kazuma climbed earlier to get a vantage point. Without thinking at all, I summoned Yamato and went for a slash at the imposter with a good amount of force. He was glowing a slight Orange and caught the Yamato with his palms that were covered in Gauntlets (Royal Guard Gilgamesh)

"Imposter…" I spat at him, he just shrugged off my insult and said in a dramatic voice, "Brotherrr! It's been too long!"

"Hold on...Brother!? You know this guy?" Kazuma asked in a confused and surprised tone, Yunyun who was still sad looked over curiously

"Hell no! He's not my brother, and I'm not his brother! Just an imposter…" I said coldly

"Why! Why o'great Vergil, must you forsaken your own brother with the same blood! Was it from killing you and accidentally dropping you in hell!?" He said as he overdramatized it.

As we were bickering and getting distracted, another surge of ice shards came from the ground in between the 4 of us and rose up trying to kill us again. All of us dodged with the Exception of Kazuma who I had to drag back.

"Brother! It looks like both of the sons have appeared! The time has finally come(1) where we can avenge our brethren slain before us!" One of the toads said, the other replied "Yes Brother, let's avenge our fallen brethren! You take the Inferior one and the Girl, I'll take the Stronger one and the Brat."

The two of them leaped high in the air with the help of their tails and aimed to land straight on top of us to split us up. The Frosts that were right next to them followed and started to warp towards us icing their ice abilities, 2 came for us and the Imposter.

(YT - DMC4SE - Vergil Moveset (Draethion)

Vergil P.O.V

It was times like these where I feel like I got the short end of the stick. I'm forcefully paired up with someone who can use high tier magic but lacks the will to fight from fear. She needs to get focused before the both of us get caught off guard.

Because of the massive threat here, instead of just using Yamato, I'd have to summon another weapon to use alongside it. Concentrating more mana from this body to my hand, I summoned another weapon just as close to me as Yamato is.

Force Edge. From its appearance it looks like a standard broadsword, but if it chooses to do so, it could turn into the sword used by my father to seal Mundus. The downside of this is that the Mana I'm using is being depleted faster, I might lose control of this body in another 2-3 hours if I use my magic too.

"Acquiring more weaponry won't do you any good Spardan blood. If you can't hold a candle to your brother, what makes you think you can take me on…" The Toad boasted, the Frosts that were waiting for the attack signal were beside him and was eyeing both me and Yunyun.

"Hmph, I wonder about that…" I said back to him as I held Yamato in my left hand with Force Edge on my back.

I was ready to take on the Demon and oversized toad, but my "partner" on the other hand….

"You can do this, you can do this…" She whispered to herself before slapping her face in both sides and looking determined, "Alright! I'm ready!" She said in a determined tone.

I looked ahead and told her without looking back, "Take on the lesser ones on the sides. They're very agile, so don't stay in one spot. One mistake will leave you impaled, got it?"

"Yeah!" She said. If she says she has it, then I'll leave her to it. I won't come to her if she needs help.

"Oh? Are you really going to leave the girl by herself? Now you're just asking her to be killed!" The toad started to laugh as the Frosts phased into the snow and headed towards Yunyun.

"You know," I asked the toad, "You really shouldn't assume things or get cocky…" I summoned and launched a small dagger at the toad that hit its stomach and looked at me confused, "...it'll get you killed someday!"

I warped over towards the Toad and drug Force Edge in the ground and did an upwards slash that launched me in the air (High Time 4:20 blaze it) The toad had no idea what hit it and tried to launch towards me when I was in the air trying to eat me, but I parried to by using my Yamato to do an air combo at it's head to make to back off by doing two diagonal slashes before doing a heavy horizontal slash (Aerial Rave A 0:23) I finished my air combo with a fast downwards slash with Force Edge (Helm Breaker 4:16) and launched a barrage of summoned swords (Blistering Swords 7:46) at the Toad before backing off.

"UGH! Insolent Pest! You won't get any more lucky shots from now on!" The toad roared in anger.

As it roared, the air around me started to darken until I couldn't see any farther than 15 ft. I grabbed the handle of the Yamato to be ready in case of any rushes, but was surprised to see 2 light blue figures of women floating in the distance.

Both of them started to float towards me in the distance, I wasn't gonna let them get near me by any chance.

I firmly grasped the Yamato with my right hand and made a single hyper quick slash that would cover them in slashes (Perfect Judgement Cut 0:40) the barrier of slashes hit both of them, but now they were floating towards me faster.

One of the blue figures tried to get behind me and grab me, but I dodged out the way and hit the figure with the scabbard of the Yamato twice before taking it out and doing two light diagonal slashes before doing a heavy one (Yamato Combo A 0:06) this made the first one back off, but there was still the other one who was now in front of me. I hit the 2nd figure with the scabbard same way that I hit the first one but this time I did a flurry of rapid diagonal slashes before doing a final heavy slash (Yamato Combo C 0:16) that made it a dim blue while laying in the ground.

I used the demon arm that I almost never use, grabbed the figure that was on the ground and pulled towards me using all the force I had to pull the toad of hiding. The Air around me was no longer Darkened and Yunyun had defeated the Frosts that were sent after her.

She started to walk over towards me when she saw me, but because the toad was still conscious, it used its tail to lift its body above the ground and slam in causing two streams of ice shards to head towards her. She was able to see it this time and dodge it before it could impale her.

"Lightning Spear" She shouted as a spear of Lightning shout out of her wand and hit the ice on the toads head and back weakening it.

The toad went limp but was still moving. Taking this opportunity to take advantage of it, I did something I probably never want to do ever in my lifetime.

Seeing as it was limp and slightly unconscious, I used the devil arm to launch myself into its slime covered mouth and just started cutting up anything and everything using Force Edge going from each side of its cheek to spitting its tongue open until finally busting out of it by cutting upwards from the roof of its mouth to the outside (2)

Because of how fast I launched myself out of its body, all the slime that was on me while I was in its mouth were gone. Never again will something like this happen…

As soon as I was out of its mouth, Yunyun used this opportunity to use one of her high tier spells on it adding insult to injury.

"Energy Ignition!" She shouted as a massive whirlwind of fire rose from the ground and engulfed the toad in fire. It wouldn't take long before the fire vanished because of the beyond freezing point temperature of the toad.

The toad started to get angry and turn black as it was roaring at the sky.

When it finished roaring, it started to shake its back and make ice shards that would launch into the air and bombard the ground with ice shrapnel. Along with it's ice, it started to get a lot more mobile jumping all over the place not staying in one spot.

The more agile it was starting to get, the more he was trying to eat us while leaping forward.

I summoned a large portion of Sword on the sky on top of him to try and slow him down, just needed to time it perfectly…

I was still dodging it's lunge attacks warping left and right as he was still trying to eat either me or Yunyun. It went for one last lunge before crashing on the ground and catching its breath. Now was the time!

I launched the summoned swords that were on top of him and watched them fall onto him paralyzing him for 30 seconds (Heavy Rain Swords 7:52.) I took the precious time I had to deal massive damage while Yunyun was charging up for a spell.

I sprinted towards the paralyzed toad and took out Forced Edge and started with a powerful lunge towards it stomach (Stinger 2 4:28). After that It was just a constant attack of diagonal slashes, lunges, rapid slashes and overall swipes from left and right using both Yamato and Force Edge.

I started the relentless attack with Slashing Force Edge diagonally twice before an all around slash before letting our multiple quick stabs and ending it with a strong lunge attack. I wasn't done with the bastard yet, so I did the same slashes but instead of doing the stabs, I used the Force edge in my left hand and Yamato in my right to do a constant X attack of constantly slashing left and right before doing a aerial spin attack (Force Edge Combo AB 3:55-4:10)

I started to feel the Ground tremor badly as I was hacking away at the toad and Yunyun was somewhat glowing with a yellow as she was chanting. I didn't need a hint to get out of the way, so I summoned the small dagger and launched it towards Yunyuns direction to get out of dodge.

By the time she finished chanting her spell, she let out in a determined tone, " 'Spear from the Heavens!' "

The mist that was all around started to clear up from above as a pillar of light shone brightly before the light intensified and a spear of light came crashing down onto the toad and clearing out the mist as well. When the spell finished, The toad got up but was limping and jumped back to the area where they were when they showed up with it's brother.

His brother on the other hand seemed to have been launched high into the air and was falling next to the toad we fought, what the hell happened to him?

(YT - DMC4SE - Dante Moveset (Draethion)

Kosuke/Fake Dante P.O.V

Man, doesn't this bring back Memories! I haven't fought one of these guys in a year or two, this'll be interesting!

While I was excited to fight Bael or Dagon, don't know which is which, Tsukiyo's friend on the other hand is freaking out.

"You gotta be joking, we're gonna die, we're seriously gonna die! I should've ran the moment Aqua did...Damn that bitch leaving me behind…" He murmured to himself

"What's wrong kid? You should have some faith in me you know! I've already killed one of these things on my own, something like this isn't even a challenge!" I said nonchalantly

"What!? Really!?" He started to look up to me with hope glimmering in his eyes

"Of course I did! But not with these puppies though," I said while looking at Gilgamesh, "This'll be a first without my Sword." I said without any care

He seemed to have lost all hope and deflated back on the ground, "We're doomed…"

"Don't say that! Compared to my bro over there, I won't use you as bait for an easy kill.." I reassured him. "Besides, where's blondie? You'd think she'd be the #1 candidate to offer herself as bait, no questions asked. Did she and her Boyfriend over there get in a fight?" I asked him

"We have no idea where she is, but all I know is that she left to a royals inn to do something. We don't know what she's doing but at this point, but we're assuming the worst...Also Boyfriend? Who'd want to go out with that masochistic idiot?" He said with confidence as we weren't paying any attention to lizard breath

"Very bold of you two to converse so casually when I'm about to kill you. No matter, it'll be the last conversation you two have!" The toad said he inhaled to the point where he was imitating a puffer fish and roar out before the area around us went dark. The Frost that were around us phased back into the ground and headed towards us.

"Hey, what's happening! Why's it gone dark all of a sudden!?" He said as he was starting to freak out.

"Tell me, what's your name kid?" I asked while looking around us to see if there was any sign of them close enough to us.

"Kazuma, but what does that have to do with what's going in right now!?" He said as he was still freaking out

"Tell me Kazuma, are you good with your swordsmanship?" I asked while still looking around.

"Uh...no not really, I think I'm a bit better at ranged attacks….why?" He asked in a confused tone

"Catch!" I said in a careless voice as I tossed both my pistols at him, "Take care of the small fry's. I want to see how you do in this situation." I said as he stared at me even more confusedly.

He caught both of them in his arms and as soon as took a glance off both of the pistols, he jumped and dropped both of them.

"Hey, Don't drop them!" I shouted at him as I dove on the ground to catch them before they hit the snow "They take time to polish and take care for them! You never seen a gun before!?"

"Sorry, it just took a while for them to compute in my head. It's sort of my first time seeing one up close and I sort of freaked out, but because you have them wouldn't that mean you're also a reincarnated?" Kazuma asked me suspiciously

"Of course I am! Did Tsuki-boi not tell you guys?" I asked him. I felt really hurt that Tsuki-boi didn't mention me to them. Official sad boi hours...

I handed Kazuma one of my pistols as I pointed the other towards the ground next to him and shot multiple times hurting one of the frosts that phased in the snow. After it disappeared, I handed him the other one and told him "Alright, don't drop them and go drop the Frosts, Got it? Good!"

"Uh, no. No, no, no, no, no. You don't understand, 1) I never shot a gun before, 2) Like hell you're making me face those lizard things on my own! What the hell type of guy do you think I am!? I'm not some bold gunner/one man army who can kill demons on their own! Are you crazy?!" He started to complained, man he really likes to complain over the littlest things….

"It's easy! It's just like a camera, point and shoot! Except the only difference is that there's a loud bang and you can kill easily with it, you know. Easy!" I said as I explained it simple enough for a 5 year old to understand, "Look, to make things easier, I'll tell you where they're gonna appear. Just make sure to let loose when they pop up ok? It takes about 40 shots to actually kill them…"

"Ughh...Fine…" He said resentfully as he spread both feet apart and held both pistols like a noob looking everywhere. I should've given him Coyote…

"Straight ahead!" I called out, he yelped and started to shoot rapidly and inaccurately ahead of him. The Frost that was in the ground popped up and for hit by 2-3 bullets before it went back down.

"Right" I called out again, same results but he slowly got better.

"Behind..." I called again, I wasn't even looking at this point, just fiddling with the pointy bits of Gilgamesh. I bet this hurts a lot…."Left..." I called again.

It would be another 5-10 minutes before Kazuma got good with my guns and much more accurate.

"Hey!" Kazuma called out to me, "I think they're dead!" About time, seriously….

I stood up from laying down on the snow and started to walked towards Kazuma. My right arm started to glow a dark orange as I was walking and waiting for the Frost to show up.

"Hey Watch out!" Kazuma shouted when he looked behind me. I was counting on this to happen, not to have an advantage of a sneak attack counter, but just to look cool.

I pulled out my Coyote shotgun and pointed the shotgun behind me from under the arm using up my level 3 charge shot from making Kazuma stall for time.

All I heard was a loud and explosive bang and two high pitched death shrieks that followed after.

"You planned that did you…" Kazuma looked at me as if I was intentionally showing off…which I was…

"What, the shotgun part, stealing your kills, or having you stall for time? Cause all three were part of the plan." I said as I started to stretch my arms and legs.

"You know, you really remind me of a certain videoga-" I cut him off of what he was about to say as I grabbed his collar and dodged out the way as we nearly got pancaked by the oversized toad.

Kazuma looked just as pale as the snow when we landed and saw what came from above, "Well that was a bit close…." I said as I stretched my arms for the real fight.

"What!? How did you dodge that!? This mist should be impossible to see through!" The toad question me, I answered back with some plagiarism involved, "Well you can cover up that body all you want, but that smell? Woo! No chance with that!" as I waved my hand back and forth in front of my nose

"Hmph! Although you don't look like him, you look just as strong as he is with that smartass mouth to match!" He retorted back "I guess I don't have to hold back anymore if you mean business!" He shouted as he roared towards us and have his skin went from an ice white to jet black.

"Now, false demon! Let's see if you can live up to my expectations!" The toad said as he was ready to fight

"Alright, sure! But don't come crying to me when I kick your ass and make some coat out of you!" I shouted back at it, "Kazuma! Keep doing what you were doing and shoot at it from afar! I'll be the damage dealer."

"O-ok!" He said in confidence, It's a good thing he got experience with those guns cause no way in hell that I'm gonna let him keep them after this.

Kazuma started to step back a couple of feet and wait for some kind of signal to start shooting, but instead of coming at us with full force, the toad spreaded his mist around us and used it to hide himself.

It went dark around us and 2 red silhouettes of woman popped up near Kazuma, he was about to shoot at them but immediately stopped when he got a good look at both if them and got a heavy nosebleed.

I walked up to where he was while he was ogling them and use my Gilgamesh to punch him in top of his head.

"OW! What the fuck was that for!" He shouted, I took back my dual pistols and gave him my shotgun, "If you're gonna get up close and look at them then use this for max firepower. Careful though, recoils a bitch." I told him as I started punching the woman silhouettes. This is not abuse, I swear. I repsec the whamen

I started off with a charged up left punch, right upper jab, high kick and ended it off with a axe kick (Gilgamesh combo A 1:20). Because of the silhouettes being somewhat small and nimble, only the left and right punch landed while one of them dodged out of the way for the kicks.

If I wanted to do damage, I needed to be quick and cunning.

Both of the silhouettes started to swirl around me making it harder to hit them. I close my eyes and waited waited for the right time to strike. A couple seconds would pass by before I put my left arm in the air in a position that was about to punch the ground and charged up my shot before Hitting the ground with a good impact leaving small shockwaves coming from it (Shock 6:41)

The ground near us shook for a while startling Kazuma and knocking back the silhouettes to the ground, I took this opportunity to do a flurry of spinning kicks at one of them (Kick 13 1:50) to make it back off. One of the silhouettes managed to sneak up behind me and almost froze me if it wasn't for Kazuma shooting it in the back and soon make her aim for him.

The silhouette started to walk seductively towards him as he held the shotgun at it "Hey, back off! I'll shoot! I'm a believer of equal rights, I'll really shoot even if your hot!" He was probably saying this because of the figure being nude, but seeing as it was distracted, I took this chance to charge a lunge punch at it and took that opportunity (Straight 1:47)

The figure that took the lunge punch was now on the ground in a dim red, while the other one was still lurking around somewhere. It didn't even matter anyways since the two figures went away from us and into the air, "Dodge!" I shouted. Me and Kazuma got out of the way from nearly getting crushed again. Piccolo would've been proud of us at that perfect dodge…(3)

When I got out of the way from getting crushed, I tried the same combo from before, Left punch, right upper, high kick and axe kick. While I did some damage here, my kicks almost bounced off from his skin. I formed a good idea from realizing this.

I started to run away from the toad to get myself a running start, "Hey! Don't leave me in my own!" Kazuma cried out as he thought I was abandoning him.

I ignored him and started sprinting at the toad in full speed. As soon as I was about 10 feet away from him I jump high and used my Air hike to get even higher before doing a Bruce Lee kick downwards at the toad aiming for its back (Full House, 1:40, I know that it was unintentionally named after the show, don't remind me)

My Bruce Lee kick landed and knocked some ice off its back making it weaker, and was launched into the air above him as I hit his flesh. I was about 35-40 ft above him and was about to lay down some hellfire. I pulled out both pistols that I took back from Kazuma, Went into Gunslinger mode, aimed it below me towards the toad and rained down some hellfire shooting in a downwards spiral (Rainstorm 8:36)

I shot at the toad for downwards in a spiral for about 10 seconds and went for a downwards punch similar to what I've done before.

The toad was limp on the ground, but was still breathing. Kazuma took this opportunity to shoot at it while I was doing rapid kicks (Kick 13 1:50) Charged PunchKick combos (Gilgamesh Combo AB (1:20 for A, 1:32 fof B)

The toad regained its consciousness back and used its tail to give it leverage to be able to spin around while using its ice spiked tail as a mace. I nearly got hit by it, but Kazuma wasn't so lucky since he got knocked back towards the tree.

He wasn't moving so that wasn't good….

I ran over towards him and saw him finally breathing and looking around, "I think I just blacked out…" he said, since the Toad was no ordinary demon from this world, it probably would've snapped his spine like a toothpick, but seeing him with bruises and cuts makes me think he's really REALLY lucky…

I took my shotgun back from him and told him to wait there, if he got hit a second time by the tail there's no telling if his luck will hold out again.

The toad was slowly walking towards us, "...How disappointing. To the see the dominant Spardan brother be held back by some commoner...I'll end both of you quickly right here to save you the time!"

He swelled up like a puffer fish and launched himself high into the air aimed to squash us. normally this could kill anything in it's way in the game...but we're not in the game now are we?

I turned on my Devil Trigger as I changed into something resembling an actual devil but with a red coat and yellow core in the middle. I got on one knee and charged up a full power upper cut and waited for the Toad to come down at the right height.

As soon as it was really close to us I unleashed my full power uppercut Street Fighter style powered with the DT and aimed for the middle of the toad with full force, I shouted "Shoryuken!" as the uppercut was going in (DT Divine Dragon 8:08)

The force in the upper cut was so strong, it launched the toad back into the air and near the hole where both of the ugly bastards came from, even though they came from me…

As it landed, I saw the other toad scattered with holes and clean slashes in the same state the toad me and Kazuma just fought. It was time to clean things up.

The mist around us started to evaporate and soon enough, we were able to see the field around us and actually see my bro and the girl he was cruel to.

Vergil P.O.V

As we walked towards the two toads that were now battered and just about near death, one of them started to spout some crap from its mouth, "How could this be!? Both me and my brother defeated!? Impossible!"

"Yeah, yeah yeah. Just get it over with and crawl back to the nasty ass cave you came from!" The imposter said as he was taunting them.

"I refuse to accept defeat in such a humiliating way...we'll freeze this entire land before dying from the likes of you!" The other toad said as both of them started to inhale the snow and massively inflate.

"Hey that's bad! We gotta do something before this town gets frozen!" Kazuma cried out, "I don't have enough mana to take them both out. My last spell drained a lot from me, sorry…" Yunyun said sadly

The imposter turned towards me with a smirk, while handing me his black pistol. I immediately knew what he wanted to do and refused.

"Oh come on! It'll be like old times! Can't you do this for your brother, please!" He pleaded as the toads were still inflating.

"I only do that with my real brother, not some phony who acts like him." I replied coldly, I decided to pull out Yamato and just Judgement cut the toad, but I wasn't able to summon it. I slowly felt myself losing control of this body as I fell on my knees. Not now!

Sucking up the little pride I'd have left after doing this with the imposter, I stood back up, and snatched the pistol from the Imposters hand.

We stood side by side from each other and aimed our guns on top of eachother aiming at the toads.

"Jackpot!" We said in unison as we shot our pistols and hit the toads straight through theirs hearts stopping them dead in their tracks.

Both of them started to have their body freeze over with ice, and soon explode in a ice-y blast.

(Just a quick side note, if Vergil ever takes over again later in the story, I will NEVER EVER use his DT abilities/combos aside from his summon swords and Final Judgement Cut for plot, because his moveset is beyond broken. I just found that out when I played as him on Sunday and every bossfight I got into lasted less than 5 minutes from his speed and attack power. Like what the actual fuck, he's way too broken as a character. I tried to nerf him a bit in the fight in this chapter, but he's so goddamn broken with his playstyle it's like I'm playing with mods on my PC

Other than that, I did replay the Bael/Dagon missions for both Dante and Vergil just to get an idea of what I can do in terms of combat, but not so much from Dante since I died a lot from using Gilgamesh and spamming Kick 13...

Reference:

1 - ...And So have I! I laugh last, cause you came to Die! (DMC4 Meme)

2 - YT: 2017-DMC4SE Nero All Buster, Counter, Grab. By Magnificent Nightcore (skip to 3:38)

3 - Papa Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z Abridged.


	27. Frustrating Conversations and Royalty

As the ice explosion finally settled by leaving no trace of what went on, I tossed the black pistol back towards the imposter of a brother that was right next to me.

"You're Welcome!" He said in cocky attitude.

I didn't face him to give any thanks, but just walked away and headed towards the town where hopefully there wasn't an execution squad waiting for us, I called Kazuma, "Come on, we're leaving."

"Oh...ok…?" He said in a confused tone like we as if we weren't gonna talk about what just happened, and that's what we're gonna do. Not. Talk. About it.

He seemed to have given back a shotgun that was given to him for the battle…

...Ugh...it pisses me off that we had to be saved by someone like him…

My hold over this body isn't gonna last long so I have to get somewhere safe to recover the mana in this body.

As I was walking away from the imposter and Yunyun without giving another word, I heard 3 different pairs of footsteps following behind me, "I believe I told Kazuma to come with me, I don't recall inviting guests over." I said coldly still not wanting to turn back towards them.

"U-um, I'm just heading over to where Megumin is...I'm not following you on purpose, I'm sorry if that offended you…." Yunyun said as she went back from being a timid shy girl than a competent fighter.

"I'm just heading towards the town for some stuff and to group with my friends…I don't know what you're talking about…." The imposter said in the worst tone that didn't make him believable whatsoever, "Besides, aren't you being a little harsh to your brother? Shouldn't there be some kind of heartwarming reunion after all these years apart?"

"Like hell there'll be a reunion! You may be able to imitate him from his guns to his weapons to his clothes, but you hold no blood of my Father in your veins. You'll always be an imposter in my eyes!" I spat as I was starting to get fed up with his act…

"Oh Vergil! You're always be a tsun. in my eyes! I'll still forgive you." He said in a carefree attitude. When I regain my mana I'm gonna hunt him down and show him the true power of a Sparda bloodline!

"Go to hell!" I said as I started to walk faster to the town, "Already been there!" He replied back.

I was just about to give him a piece of my mind, but sadly I ran out of time as my control on this body was up.

Tsukiyo's body was about to hit the cold snow on the ground facefirst, but the imposter who was at the back of the pack somehow got up to the front and caught him before he hit the ground.

"Just this once, I'll do you a solid. But you're gonna have to pay me back in a fight, got it? Make sure to tell him that when he wakes up bro." The imposter said as he put Tsukiyo's body over his shoulder to carry him.

Fine, I'll tell him…

"Hey, What happened?" Kazuma asked as he and Yunyun rushed over to the imposter, "Aw He's just being lazy and wanted his trusty brother to bring the body back your guy's mansion. Being the amazingly compassionate and trustworthy brother I am, how could I refuse!" He said as he started to have some kind of stupid grin on.

So help me god, if I see him again….

Both of them seemed to have looked at eachother, not buying his story but just deciding to go with it for now.

"Besides, what happened to Tsuki-boi in the first place to make my bro control him?" The imposter asked.

Kazuma then proceeded to explain everything that happened after the events of him dropping off Tsukiyo from nearly being caught in the crossfire of the Destroyer killshot.

"Wow...that sucks…" The imposter said as he was still walking towards the town with those two, "Yeah, and we're wondering when Tsukiyo will wake up since it's been more than a week since it happened. Something like this isn't normal isn't it?" Kazuma asked

"Well, in my experience, if someone were to nearly die multiple times and somehow live through it just to possibly experience it over and over again, you'd lose hope in wanting to live that life, wouldn't you say?" The imposter said, he was smiling or had a cocky attitude, but more of a face of empathy, "It's especially true if you include pain in that too. Having to experience that over and over, but for what…" He seemed to have glared at the distance for a moment before recomposing himself.

Kazuma seemed to have agreed with him in that subject, "Yeah, I can understand that. I died nearly a month or two ago, and it was...really bad. I couldn't imagine having to go through the pain and fear multiple times only to have it repeat like nothing happened…"

"By the way...who are you?" Kazuma finally asked, sure ask him that after the fact that he carried Tsukiyo over his shoulder and not when he made himself first present. Sure, that makes sense…

"Oh. I never introduced myself did I? My name is Kosuke, I'm one of Tsukiyo's friend and a Demon like him…" The imposter, Kosuke, said as both of them froze in the stop trying to comprehend what he just said.

"I'm sorry but can you repeat that, I feel like I heard something wrong. I just want to make sure what I heard was right…" Kazuma said as he had a blank face on, Yunyun on the other hand looked terrified that she was in the presence of a demon, well 2 to be specific.

"Yeah you heard right. I. Am. A. Demon." Kosuke said calmly as he wasn't sure why they were questioning them, "I mean, this isn't your first time seeing a demon in front of you, there's Tsukiyo and that woman in purple with the huge rack who sucks at business."

"Uh, yeah...I know. It's just sort of dumb how I'm seeing demons come up and present themselves in front of us. You'd think that they'd be a bit more hidden and rare because of their role in this world…" Kazuma said as he questioning the logic in this world.

Kosuke did a massive over exaggerating gasp as he heard that, "Did you just assume my role in society!? How dare you, feeble common dweller! You need to check your privilege of being able to walk on this world all willy-nilly since us, oppressed Demons, have no rights in this world! I am offended, this is why I hate this world and it's appeal to the Human species. I bid you good day sir!" He said over exaggeratingly as he looked away snobbishly.

This didn't affect Kazuma whatsoever, "I already know where that's from. Doesn't work on me…" He said in a deadpan tone

"Awww Dammit…" Kosuke said disappointingly as his joke was spoiled.

We finally reached the town where there actually wasn't an execution squad waiting for us, or Aqua, Megumin, and Sena….

I should've expected this, so I'm not sure why I expected them to wait this long for fighting 2 boss' and their lackeys.

Kosuke dropped Tsukiyo's body at the mansion along with Kazuma and Yunyun where Aqua and Megumin were waiting for us, but no Sena surprisingly.

Kosuke left the Mansion and went wherever the hell he went to, Yunyun talked to Megumin about what happened and soon left, Tsukiyo was still out of commission, and everything sort of went back to normal with the absence of Darkness that still went on.

This cycle went on for about 2 days before something "interesting" finally happened.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tsukiyo's still out, but his brain waves seem to be getting more active and responsive. I wonder if I can call out to him and force him out.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Hey Tsukiyo! Get up and stop being a pathetic slob relying me to clean up for you! This is your mess too, come a deal with it!_

Ver...gil?

~ ~ ~ ~

Hey, he actually responded!

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Come on, kid! That's enough moping around from near death experience #9, probably. I think it's time you pulled your weight and pull yourself together. I'm not gonna babysit your body and teammates any longer if your gonna go AWOL on us!_

I...think-

~ ~ ~ ~

I soon heard shouts and screams from the lower level of the Mansion that cut off what he was about to say, "No Wait! I'm Sorry Kazuma, I'M SORRY! Please Stop! I'll apologise!" Aqua shrieked until she started bawling.

Tsukiyo's brain waves immediately flatlined and went back to being neutral cutting off any connection to him.

Goddammit! That Bitch! It's good thing I haven't taken control yet, If I did something would've broke at this point.

I started to take control of this body and get up from the bed. I looked to the side and saw a desk where a small pile of blue flowers were gathered and almost completely withered with one rose separated from the rest right next to his revolver that was untouched.

I couldn't help but feel like this was important in a way.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Zinnia…_

~ ~ ~ ~

I think...they were called that…

Wait, why do I know that…

Not wanting to get caught up in something pointless, I took the revolver that was next to the rose and holstered it in my back for later use. I don't like using guns, but at this point, If using my magic takes more mana than necessary I'll use it as a helping tool.

I went out of my room and headed downstairs where all the noise was and going to "persuade" the false goddess to stop talking for the entire day, but didn't get to since I was cut off by a certain woman who busted through the doors.

"Guys! We got bad news, like really bad!" the woman said as she was panicking. The woman, by the way she was dressed up, was nobility, there's no doubt about it.

Sadly, I could already tell who it was even with all the makeup, fancy clothes, and over revealing attire.

Kazuma looked at her with confusion, "...who are you?" The woman seemed to be blushing while looking away, "Nows not the time for this kind of joke, can we do this sometime else?"

I said in a deadpan voice drawing their attention "Oh look, you're finally back Darkness...yay. We're so excited…" to have another migraine merged back into this faulty team…

"Ah! Tsukiyo! You're back!" Darkness exclaimed while somehow being happy, "Darkness!?" Kazuma said while being even more confused, "Is that really you?

"Yes it is, and like I said, we have bad news!" She said as she wanted us to listen I butted in before she could even explain, "Ok well 1. I'm not Tsukiyo, it's still Vergil. Tsukiyo still hasn't woken up, but I managed to get in contact with him earlier before a certain monkey shrieked a cut off my connection to him." I glared at Aqua who was on her knees on the floor, "2. I don't think it's "our" problem for what your about to explain, but rather _your_ problem."

At this point, I'd rather not be involved in anymore clusterfuck like situations.

"Shhh, hey it's alright. Just take some time to go take a shower and feel free to cry your poor heart out." Kazuma said while trying to comfort her, did they really take what they said to heart?

'Huh? What do you-" Darkness was about to ask but Megumin, who had Chomusuke in her arms, silenced her by saying "It's alright Darkness, you don't have to tell us what happened. Just go rest and soothe you mind and body. We're here for you…" She also had a tone of compassion.

"...Bath? Wait, what are you guys thinking about?" Darkness was thoroughly confused on the situation.

Aqua started to walk up to her with a neutral face while rubbing her hands in the material of Darkness' dress, "This is some high class material for the dress, He must have gave you this as a reward for compensation...you poor girl…" Aqua started to sob lightly as she thought of what could've happened.

"Ok, you guys are blowing this out of proportion. I really don't think Darkness was raped by the fatass landlord." I finally said as I was starting to get annoyed with them overreacting.

"Raped!? What!? No! Alderp doesn't have the guts to do anything bold towards me. This dress is owned by my family!" Darkness said as she finally understood what they were freaking out over

"Oh" All three of them said in unison, man they really are idiots are they...why am I reminding myself of the obvious...

Kazuma would soon speak up from the cleared up confusion, "If you weren't raped by the landlord, then what's with the dress then? You going for some kind of perverted play or something?"

"No! Like I said, my family owns this dress! Besides the point, here!" Darkness said as she took out a photo with a handsome-ish man on it, "Take a look!"

I walked up to Kazuma to get a better look at him while he muttered to himself, "Oh hey, he's pretty Handsome. I hate him." While ripping the photo in half without a second thought.

"Hey! I needed that photo to reject him for the marriage interview!" Darkness said, Marriage interview huh, Not surprised…

"Oh sorry," Kazuma said while finally coming back to reality, "It's just that seeing this man be so handsome and happy made my hands move on their own...Hold on, marriage interview?"

Darkness then explained to us the sticky situation she got herself into by promising the landlord anything back when Tsukiyo was on trial:

Because she promised him anything, she assumed that he'd propose to her again after multiple failed attempts, but was surprised to hear that instead of him proposing the marriage, it would be towards his son. Seeing the better side of his son, Darkness' father agreed for an interview despite Darkness' opinion. The only confusion in all this is the fact that the Landlord wants his son to marry Darkness despite all his failed attempts.

"Well regardless of why he wants his son, the situations the same: This is too suspicious and this was caused by you. I don't think we should have a say in something like this." I said while leaning next to a wall.

"Hey! We should still try and help her even help her. Besides this is your fault too!" Kazuma said while trying to blame me.

"Do I need to remind you who took the nuclear core out and forced me to summon a portal?" I said reminding him of what happened, I won't mention the fact that I Planned to leave all of them to die.

"Guys! Now's not the time to play the blame game, we need to do something about the marriage." Megumin shouted as she shut both of us up.

Darkness stated to hold cover her face with her hands, "Ugh...what should I do...I've tried for a couple of days to persuade Father into rejecting this interview but he won't listen...The interview is this afternoon and I'm out of time." Darkness said in a sad voice, "I'm sorry to ask this, but can someone come with me to help persuade my Father?"

~ ~ ~ ~

 _...go_

Are you serious! Like hell I'm gonna go!

~ ~ ~ ~

I argued with Tsukiyo as he somewhat regained control of his demon arm and tried to dig his nails into my leg.

Ok fine! I'll go! Just don't expect any miracles to happen…

"I'll go with you" I said while trying not to argue, all four of them looked at me with a confused expression.

"Are you really gonna come with me?" Darkness said with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

"Don't take this the wrong way," I said quiet enough to let her hear only, "Consider this a favor from Tsukiyo."

"Huh, what's this about Tsukiyo?" Kazuma said as he was able to listen in on what I said.

"Nothing, don't worry about it…" I said trying to shut him up.

"No, you definitely said something about Tsukiyo, I heard his-" He tried to argue with me, but I summoned a sword and aimed it at his faced to make sure he got the message.

"OK, Ok! I got it!" Kazuma said while hiding behind the couch.

I made the sword disappear and turned to Darkness, "So, how are we gonna persuade him? If we go headfirst and tell him, there's no doubt that he won't listen to us so we need some kind of plan." I said

"Yes, but seeing as both Alderp and my Father are so eager to continue with this interview, there's almost no chance to reject it." Darkness said in a sad tone

Megumin spoke up, "I don't understand why he want his son to marry you and have you have his daughter in law. With his landlord status couldn't he just Force Darkness to be concubine(1) by force?"

Darkness seemed to have shrunk a little when she mentioned that and said in a low voice, "W-well, my real name is Dustiness Ford Lalatina. I'm the daughter of an...esteemed noble clan…" She said while her voice got lower and lower.

Everyone, besides me and Tsukiyo probably, were massively surprised. Darkness showed a hint of loneliness and sadness with the way everyone reacted.

"H-hold on! D-dustiness!? As in THE Dustiness family! One of the nations top Advisors!?" Megumin shouted as she was freaking out, Chomusuke was getting squeezed by her arms as she was freaking out.

"...yes" Darkness said lowly

"You mean to tell me, that If I get adopted into your family, I Could get a life of constant 1% tier wine and laze around everyday!?" Aqua questioned as she started to daydream the 1% life.

"...Yeah, but I don't think my family is looking for-" Darkness tried to reply but was cut off by Kazuma, "You mean to tell me that this 40 million debt could be easily paid off!?" He said with a massive grin.

"I can't use the money of the Dustiness family to pay off debt! That'll taint it's name!" Darkness tried to argue to Kazuma.

"Ok, and?" I said as I was the only one unamused by her royalty status.

"Vergil! You're in the presence of a Royalty! Show some respect before you get executed!" Aqua tried to whisper/shout to me

"Oh please, as someone who is part Royalty on the demon side(2) and as someone who killed royal demons at one point, this isn't something new to me. And I doubt Tsukiyo would care as well if he was here. You know what kind of person he is." I said as I ignored the royalty vibe given around.

Darkness showed a faint glimpse of a smile when I finished saying that.

"Besides, Lalatina? What a joke…" I said while smirking

"Don't call me by that name!" Darkness said while feeling embarrassed.

Megumin cleared her throat as we looked at her, "Well..this is surprising, but Darkness to me is still Darkness. A dependable crusader who cares for her friends and an important friend." She said with full confidence. I don't think she's dependable at all, but she does care for her comrades at the least.

"Thanks Megumin…" Darkness said with a smile.

"Hey I got some shocking news too! I am actually a goddess! The leader of the Axis Sect.!" Aqua said while trying to hog some attention.

All four of us, "Oh, good for you!" with no feelings in our voices.

"Why don't you guys believe me!" She cried as she was now on the ground sobbing. I don't know why she was surprised by that answer…

But for now, we still needed a plan for the marriage interview. Going in headfirst won't work whatsoever, and sadly I can't interrogate him into submission even though it'd be the most effective plan I have.

While I was still thinking about a plan, Kazuma for some reason shouted while ripping up the photo that was still ripped up, "THAT'S IT!"

Ok Seriously, is he insane?

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

After we decided to go to the mansion along with Kazuma and Aqua, Megumin prepared to leave to go somewhere where she could talk to Yunyun about something important. Which meant that it'd be the four of us. There'd be a royal carriage coming for us later on.

Before she left entirely, Megumin pulled me into the side and whispered, "I feel like Kazuma had bad intentions, please look over him." No need to tell me twice, it's just the type of person he is. She then left while sneaking a glance at Kazuma.

I then remembered something. The Arm…

I put my arm up to my face while Kazuma asked in confusion, "Anything wrong?"

"This arm, I gotta hide it for the moment since Darkness' Dad doesn't know about it yet." I said as I looked at it from side to side. A simple sling should hold it as long as it covers up to my elbow.

"Oh yeah, that's right...Even though the entire town is used to you being part demon, there are other places that think differently if they saw you out in the open." Darkness said while glancing at my arm.

I had to head into town to see if they had a sling that covers up to my elbow. "I'll be right back" I said as I headed into town to find a tailor shop.

If Tsukiyo's memory serves right, then there should be a tailor shop about 20-30 minutes from the mansion.

When I finally found the shop, the Tailor instantly recognized me and greeted me saying that he was grateful for saving his tailor shop, but more importantly the town. I asked him about a sling and the sticky situation of being caught in the open in a place that isn't forgiving as this one.

After listening to all that I had to say, he went to the back room of his and pulled out a dark brown leather sling that covered up the fingers and went up to the lower bicep. I was about to pull out the pouch that contained the currency of this world, but after digging through my pockets I came up empty.

Seeing me coming up empty with no money, the tailor just told me to take it. It was on the house for saving the town and his shop. Along with that, he seemed to also give me a dark grey cloak for the weather outside. Not having a choice, I took the sling, adjusted it, took the cloak, put it on and bid the tailor a good day. I'd make sure to pay him for the sling and cloak later, I don't like accepting charities.

Another 20 minutes later, I returned to the mansion where the Carriage Was now ready to depart to where Darkness lived.

As soon as I got closed to the carriage, Kazuma dragged me in with Darkness and Aqua, and told his so-called plan to us.

What he explained to us was to basically accept the interview from her father, but during the process of interviewing him, Darkness would need to ruin it for him. Of course, there was no need to taint the name since that do more harm than we needed, but just enough to discourage the other party.

Where all 3 of us would come in, is the assistance of discouraging the other party. We'll be disguised as butlers/maids. I can act it for the time being since I have etiquette, but I'm not so sure about the other two.

"That's it Kazuma! If we can make this to work, then there'll be no need to beat some sense into my father every time he arranges a marriage!" Darkness said in a joyful tone.

For the flak that I give Kazuma for being perverted, weak, and a brat, he can think up of pretty convincing plans on the fly. But this alone might not be enough for her father to submit, so I might have to interrogate him into submission…

"Yeah! This is a really good plan Kazuma! For a moment I thought that you'd let Darkness go easily with no remorse saying 'Well that's one problem out of the way! Let's see if we can find someone useful for once!' " Aqua said, Kazuma swallowed his spit while reassuring them that he wouldn't do such a thing to such an "important" comrade.

I looked at him seeing if he actually meant that, He looked at me while trying to persuade me "Hey, I actually mean that. Don't look at me with that face, I'm actually half serious about this…."

Right...we'll see when we get there…

~ ~ ~ ~

 _...fucked_

~ ~ ~ ~

Yeah, I know...

(All right, you guys got your two chapters, I really need to stop procrastinating and actually work on my artwork, math, and graphic design stuff…

Also I recently watched the new Venom movie and to be honest it was actually sort of good, pretty funny too at times. I'd recommend it if you wanted to watch it.

It was pretty good that...I got a little bit of inspiration on what to do next for when Tsukiyo wakes up, especially with the help of Doom Guy the anime (Goblin Slayer)

Single review this week by YukiMegi on the Oct 1. (Sp00ktober has begun):

Thanks for the review, and thanks for giving the lonely gril Yunyun some love by being her friend. Yes, those guard did do a good number on Tsukiyo since they basically beated on him for hours with both fist and feet so that really sucks, Aqua is generally the same, Sena though, I have plans to make her less of a cunt since she has reasons for why she acts the way she acts. Also, recall what Kosuke said in this chapter, it's basically a hint for why Tsukiyo hasn't woken up yet...

Reference:

1 - Basically being in a sexual relationship with no marriage or/and having a status above wive(s).

2 - Is Sparda technically Royal since he was "The Dark Knight to seal away the Demon King Mundus" along with the fact that he was worshipped as a god in Fortuna? I'm actually curious about this.


	28. Marriage Interview and Maids

About an hour in after we left town to head to where Darkness lived and to ruin the interview, we finally started to see a town much more livelier and cleaner than Axel.

"Oh wow, look!" Kazuma said as he looked out the window with Aqua staring at awe at the city in the distance.

As soon as we got closer, we stated to see the city in a more defined view.

Everything there was either a pure white or vibrant gold with hints of orange and purple. Everyone walking around looked happy in billionaire-like casual attire with colors that signified either royalty or anything high tier. In a strange sense, it seemed that Aqua's clothing matched the similar fashion that was around us.

The stonework and buildings that were all around us were made to perfection, and there was almost no sign of anything being out of date or needing to be replaced. Everything was at its peak, just like the 1% expects it to be.

Compared to Axel, this place makes it look like you'll never make it here financially, even if you were given two lifetimes to work, hunt, and kill the Demon King.

I wasn't surprised by any of this at this point in my life, was it because of my slight Royalty from Father? No, it's just that I couldn't care less.

The carriage kept going into the streets, and as soon as people saw it, the men stopped what they were doing and got on one knee to give honor, and the women bowed deeply to show respect. The Dustiness family really is popular around here aren't they?

By the looks of the outside, the carriage was stopped in front of two large gates that were made of steel, gold, iron and chain with just about 7-10 guards on each side. In the middle of the gate was the insignia that was on Darkness' necklace that she had. It didn't take a genius to figure out where we were.

The gates finally opened after talking to the chauffeur, and we finally entered the courtyard of what we could assume is the Dustiness Courtyard.

The driver soon pulled up to the front of the Mansion that seemed 100x bigger, cleaner, and much nicer than the one we lived in. Outside the doorway was a row of Maids and Butlers that were waiting for Darkness to come out and greet her.

As soon as the carriage door was opened, Darkness was the first to step out and present herself to the Butlers and Maids that were waiting for her along with an old-ish man in his late 40's who was wearing a top tier suit waiting at the doors.

"Welcome Home, Madam Lalatina." Each of the Butler and Maid said as she walked passed them

The rest of us stepped out and followed her to her Mansion, the Maids and Butlers who greeted her looked at the three of us in confusion asking themselves why commoners have arrived with the Lady herself.

As soon as the three of us caught up with Darkness who was talking to what seems to be her father as we heard a voice in happiness, "A-Are you really going to Accept the interview!? Is this true Lalatina!?" He said.

Darkness replied back to him in a tone we never heard before similar to a nobilities accent, "Yes dear Father, I would like to try it."

Kazuma and Aqua were snickering behind her back trying not to laugh at what they just heard, "My oh my Darkness, replying to him as 'Dear Father', such a lady." Aqua said teasingly, Kazum followed up with, "Well this is only natural her to use such formalities, I wonder if she'll do the same to us."

I would've stopped them from trying to embarrass themselves in front of Darkness' father, but this is on them if they get scolded and put in a cell.

Her Father looked behind her finally noticing is and asked, "Lalatina, who are these guests?" he said in suspicion.

"Father, these are my adventuring companions. For this Marriage Interview session, I'd like to employ them as temporary Butlers and maids to accompany me for this event." She said in the same nobility-like tone.

"...Um...About that…" Her Father said, it was at this point that Kazuma stepped in front of her Father and gave out his introduction, "Hello there, My name is Satou Kazuma and just like your Daughter said, I'm one of her adventurer companions. If the interview is a success, then because of our status differences we will not be able to meet her again, so we'd like to spend this last possible time with her before we can entrust her our important comrade of ours to the possible groom."

There were no stutters, no ill-intentions, and nothing that stood out of the ordinary except for everything he said, and yet he did a proper job at it. Aqua and Darkness were absolutely stunned to hear him talk proper for once, and I couldn't help but feel proud of him being acting like a proper gentlemen, but we all know that what he said was plain bullshit.

Darkness' Father turned towards one of the maids and whispered something, he then went inside the Mansion. The maid he whispered to relayed to us that Darkness would be meeting her father in the Lounge while the three of us would head into the maid/butler area to go change into uniform.

As we entered the mansion, Kazuma and Aqua were stunned to step inside and see a top tier mansion in person. The walls were made in a red/pink-ish brick with porcelain pillars and deep red carpet with checkered tiles. The maid escorting us waited for us as the 2 of them were taking in the scene around us. Along the walls were paintings that were made to perfection with the occasional vase or armoured figure with a longsword and shield.

We soon reached the the Butler/Maid area where we were told to wait there until they found a clothes to fit the three of us.

We soon sat down in the couch and was offered tea before the other maids left. It was now the three of us alone in the room. I tried to lay back in the couch to stretch my limbs from sitting a carriage for an hour until I noticed something press against my lower back.

I sat back up and reached there to see what it was, and realised what it was as soon as I felt a wooden ergonomic grip.

I forgot that took the Tsukiyo's revolver with me since I thought that we were going to doing something productive for once, and because of Darkness' unannounced arrival and trip to the Capital where we'd stop her marriage I had actually forgot that I packed it with me.

Seeing as there was still plenty of time before the Maids came back, I told both of them, "You know, this might be a bad time to say this but because of everything that happened, I accidentally packed this..." I said as I pulled out my revolver, "...when we left to come here."

There were 2 different reactions when I pulled out the Revolver, Kazuma was in utter shock and fear when I pulled it out, while Aqua was in awe as she got closer to inspect it.

"What the Fuck!?" Kazuma shouted in a voice low enough where it couldn't be heard outside, "Oh Cool!" Aqua said in amazement.

"Why do you have that here!? We're all gonna die if one of the maids see you with that! Hide that at all costs, I'm not gonna die from a blunder of yours! We already have it bad enough from having to hide your demon arm, it's just a lot worse that you have a weapon here as well!" Kazuma shouted as he was freaking out from possible death.

"Don't worry, as long as I can holster it behind me with the butler suit borrowed to me, it should hide easily. Plus these guys don't even know what a gun is, those haven't been invented yet." I said

It was this time that the door opened and Darkness poked her head inside to see if had gotten changed yet.

"Sorry for the wait you guys, my Father is trying to set up the diner and lounge for the meet, so I have a bit of spare tim-" Darkness said while catching a glimpse of the Revolver in my hand, "What's that?" she asked in curiosity.

Shit, well guess there's no hiding it now.

Darkness walked up to where we were sitting and notice how freaked out Kazuma was, "Hey, why is Kazuma freaking out, should I be wary for today?" She asked in a cautious tone.

"Well, not really no. What I have is right here," As I motioned at the Revolver, "Is essentially a Crossbow that's 3x smaller, 10x deadlier, and very, very, loud." I said in a calm tone, not having a sense of urgency with my wording.

Darkness, after hearing what I said went from being normal to completely freaking out like Kazuma. "Why would you bring that weapon here!? In my own house to be more specific!" She said while gripping both of my shoulders tightly freaking out just as bad as Kazuma.

I pried both her hands off me and reassured her, "Don't worry, as long as I don't take my butlers jacket off, it shouldn't be visible or noticable. This isn't the first time odds have been against me in a stressful situation, trust me." I said while placing the revolver back in my lower back again.

At this time one of the maids that served us tea earlier, opened the door and came with 2 butler uniforms and a maid uniform, when she saw Darkness here she called out, "Madam Lalatina, you should return to Father who is waiting near the entrance, the guests will come with you after they finished changing."

After we were given our outfits, we were shown a small room to change in. One of the maids noticed the leather sling that covered my right arm, "Oh my, would you like any assistance with your outfit?" She asked caring like

"Oh no, it's quite alright. I can do this myself." I said rejecting her help, if she even got a small glimpse of my arm the plan to interfere with the interview would've failed before it even started.

After putting on the outfit given to me, that surprisingly fit me well, I was directed to the entrance where I would be standing next to Kazuma, Aqua, Darkness, and her father waiting for the "groom" to arrive. And just like I said earlier, the Revolver is kept snug on my lower back with the butler jacket keeping it hidden.

"Oh my, that outfit suits you Vergil. You got the cold attitude to match with the plain suit. You'd make a great Butler/Guardian for this household." Aqua teased as she was in her maid outfit.

"Hey, you might be onto something Aqua, he does look the role with his slick back hair and cold eyes. You could make a fine guardian for someone…" Kazuma added in.

"You guys should keep your mouths shut just in case of any incident occurring at this event, it'd be a shame if you were to suddenly disappear for the day and miss out on enjoying your time with you dear companion…" I said in a stern voice while giving them a cold glare, "Besides thanks for the compliment, I sadly can't say the same to you guys since you feel out of place, like a sore thumb…" I retorted back.

Darkness' Father spoke up, "Eh...Vergil was it? I'd like to ask about your arm, have you been an accident recently?" He asked while eyeing my sling.

I replied back with the story that the four of us agreed on back in the carriage, "Yes, I have. About a week ago during a quest, I was injured by an ogre wielding a heavy club. While some healing spells could fix my arm in a snap, the situation is different since the bone itself was almost obliterated so it'll takes some time to heal."

He gave me a look of sympathy, "Oh my, how terrible. I wish you the best of luck during your recovery. I've heard stories of adventurers both new and old getting handicapped from a bad experience and that makes them stop their adventures altogether because of it. It worries me as a father since you never know the day holds for you when you head out of those doors…"

"I don't think you should worry as much as you should," I replied informing her father of Darkness' role, "Out of everyone in the party, and town as a matter of fact, she has the highest defense, so I'm pretty sure nothing will get to her and actually hurt her." While nothing will actually be hurt by her since she can't swing a sword at all…

"But Still!" He said while tears started to well up in his eyes, "Never would I expect Lalatina to actually accept an interview for marriage! For most of her interviews that were attempted, she's reject all of them without even wanting to know the name of the gentleman. Although I am a bit suspicious that it was Alexei that proposed this, his son on the other hand is a very good man. You'll be very happy with him Lalatina, I can almost guarantee it!" He said while tears of joy were falling down his face, oh the poor bastard...I'm not gonna feel bad for this whatsoever…

"Oh dear Father, I only said I'd seriously consider the interview," Darkness said as her tone changed from elegant to sinister, "I never said I'd agree to marry him though! It's still to early for me! Me and my companions will do what it takes to destroy the interview!" she said with a sinister laugh at the end.

Her Father's face went pale and soon as he understood her True Intentions, "N-no! You don't mean…!? Then the real reason for these three…!?" He said as he started to fear the worst.

I turned towards him with a smirk, "Sir, while I am a temporary maid, I don't recall pledging any kind of allegiance to you or your family name...so I'm going to have to ruin this for the betterment of you daughter. I'm not sorry for this."

"P-please! Don't do this!" He started to beg, "I-I'll reward you well if this interview goes well without any unnecessary interruptions!"

"I'm sorry but, I really don't-" I was about to reject him if his offer, but Kazuma managed to cut me off before I finished my sentence.

"My Lady please don't speak in such a way, It is very ill-mannered of you."

I knew he'd be up to something, the brat's bailing!

I turned towards Kazuma who was acting professional all of a sudden, "You're really gonna bail on us after all the planning in the carriage, are you?"

He responded with the same professional tone, "I'm only here to make sure my Lady receives grand happiness towards the end of this event, nothing else."

I grabbed his shoulder with my free hand and looked him in the eye, "Do I need to _persuade_ you to make sure you're on the right side?" I said threatening him, out of the two of us, I have the 200x more combat experience so putting down Kazuma shouldn't require any effort whatsoever, even if I use one hand…

Before I was able to beat him down mercilessly and brutally, the Mansion entrance doors opened up and the man that was shown in the photo previously had now appeared.

Darkness was the first to respond to this and started to rush to the doors.

"Ah! There you are! My name is Dustiness Ford Lalatina, but as of right now you can call me Queen-!" She tried to say but was interrupted when Kazuma punched her in the back of her head, "Oh no! Watch out Milady, there's a bug on your head!" He said.

As the other man was still walking towards us, the four of us were excused to make sure that the "bug" didn't harm the Lady too much…

We walked into an empty hallway where we were sure there was no one there, and started to interrogate Kazuma.

"What was that Kazuma! Aren't you guys here to help me!?" She said while grabbing his collar tightly.

"I'm pretty sure he's gonna stop us from ruining this interview," I said as I pulled out the revolver, "Maybe we should take him out and revive him later…" I said as I pointed it to his head.

"Hmpf! At this point, death is better than dealing with a 40 million eris debt." He said snobbishly while looking away.

"You're right, death is better at this point is it…" I said while pointing it away from his head, "Maybe I should aim for somewhere more important!" I said menacingly as I pointed it towards his crotch.

He started to panic when he saw where I was aiming at, "WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! What the Fuck!? Stop! Stop! There was a good reason for this, I swear!" He squealed as he was sweating bullets.

"Then you should tell us quick, I don't like waiting…" I said as I pulled the hammer back on the revolver.

"It's because of her family reputation! Her Reputation ok!?" He said as he was sweating even more, "If we make too much of a mess, this plan will only backfire on her you know? We gotta do enough, but not too much! I'm not turncoating I swear!"

Darkness looked at him in confusion, "Is that it!? If the negative news spread around about me being an unfit candidate for marriage then that'll be the best case scenario for me! I won't have to worry about my father setting up any arranged marriages, I can adventure as much as I want, and I could live the life I want to live!"

"Aren't you worried about your father disowning you though? That could be a major setback…" Aqua said as she was playing with Darkness' hair

"Even if I do get disowned, I've already prepared for that! Even if I get disowned, life will be tough...having to take on hard jobs that leaves me almost sleep deprived and have my bones and muscle ache in pain! But even so!" Darkness was starting to pant "I will try my best to survive and endure whatever is being thrown at me!"

Now I'm just tempted to shoot the both of them at this point!

"I want to live a life like that, but giving up on adventuring to become a stay at home mother is the last thing I want to be…" She said in a lonely voice

"Is adventuring really that important to you? I mean, if you think about it, there's almost no endgame to this. Besides, that guy doesn't seem like he'd make you stay at home to care for children does he?" Kazuma answered normally

"Adventuring is everything to me! Everything about it makes me excited about it! Going off on my own, exploring places I could never go because of my status and facing off against enemies tougher than me and experiencing a true battle! A battle where I can struggle and feel things I could never feel!" Darkness started panting again, "Even if I don't kill a monster, the pure adrenaline rush of feeling pain in a heart pounding battle isn't comparable to anything I've ever felt before! Even if he doesn't seem like the man to make me stay at home, I don't like him at all...There's someone else I'm a bit interested in…"

"Oh my, what's this Darkness. Is this what they call enjoying youth? I'm so proud of you right now!" Aqua said as she started teasing Darkness as she blushed pink.

She looked away and regained most of her composure while still blushing a bit as she went on to her own monologue, "A-anyways, If I get married right now, that'd be essentially giving up my sword to be a crusader! Almost all of the noblilites except for a couple few are completely worthless when it comes to the battlefield. They won't step in and deal with it like a man, and those who do go on the battlefield are too good at what they do, they'll slay a monster with little to no damage, and that's completely wrong! A battle should be adrenaline pumping fight where both parties get damaged equally, and the pain they feel should be immense as they fight for what they think is right." She says as she thinks back to probably zero times that it probably happened.

"So what you want is to live a free life where you can constantly fight, feel the pain and adrenaline of a "fight" and live it over and over again?" Kazuma said as he wasn't amused of what he was hearing.

"Exactly! Someone like Tsukiyo who fights! He fights with all his might, and still gets hurt in the process, even if it nearly kills him, he experiences a true battle and true pain whenever he fights! I wish I could be in his shoes for a fight, just once would be enough!" Darkness said as she clenched her fist.

My demon arm almost shot up to try and punch Darkness, but because it was in the sling, it couldn't do much...

She soon turned around and headed back towards the room where her father and Walther were, "I don't plan on giving up that life, it's too good to let go of it! It doesn't matter if you want to get in my way, just don't complain when you get your consequences if you do."

As soon as she was out of earshot, Kazuma pulled us in and discussed a different plan.

"Ok, change of plan. We really need to stop Darkness if she continues with this. She's only going to hurt herself and her father if she goes too far. This isn't about letting her stay as a crusader, but for the sake of her father who has put up with her shit constantly. He genuinely wants her to be happy, but she doesn't see this since that masochist is thinking about her fetishes!"

"Shouldn't we try explain this situation to her father? If we talk about it, he should be able to reconsider this marriage right?" Aqua said, oh hey an actual plan that could work if the situation wasn't forced.

"That's no good, as a spouse of nobility, you don't have any say in this type of conversation. Especially if she called this a favor from her to the Landlord, there's no getting out of this." I said reminding her of situation we're in.

"Vergil right, Darkness is a nobility. Something like this is normal for people like them. If we try to intervene, the landlord will send guards to kill Vergil and Vergil will probably try to kill them all, the landlord himself, and become a national threat. Now I don't know about you, but that's the very last thing I want to be written down when they target us!" Kazuma said.

"W-well, we could try and hide in the axis cult. They are my loyal subjects, so there should be able to hide us as we become national threats. You never know, we could always switch names and change our appearances like in those movies…" Aqua said as she was slowing getting driven into a corner

"If we can do this, not only can we get rid of a troublesome person who can't do jack in terms of fight, but we can also get a good amount of money from this! You heard Darkness' old man when he wanted to stop us, we'll get rewarded if we do…" Kazuma said as he started grinning on the rewards for giving away one of his "companions"

In complete honesty, If he were to get rid of Darkness, that'd probably be the best thing to do in terms of party management. If we get rid of someone who'll always be a liability, it'll be a burden off our backs, and we could probably think of better and logical plans instead of winging it 24/7.

"Kazuma, how could you treat Darkness like that!? After all she did for us like….uh…um…." Aqua was struggling to think of reasons to keep her in the party, she knew Kazuma was right

"EXACTLY!" Kazuma shouted as he grabbed Aqua's shoulder hard, "We get her to marry, we get paid, we pay off the debt, we live a better life without having someone rush into battle blind! If you don't wanna do this, then go ahead and tell Darkness' father what Darkness' endgame in terms of her adventuring is, go on! Tell him!"

"Ow! Please stop! I don't wanna tell him! That hurts, please let go!" Aqua said as she tried to squirm out of Kazuma's grip.

Kazuma turned to me after letting go of Aqua and asked, "Vergil, this might be a lot to ask, but please, Tolerate Darkness for a while and let her get married off. Don't blow a fuse."

"No promises, If I blow a fuse you'll be the first to die." I said as I walked back to the lounge where Darkness', her father, and Walther waited.

Weirdly enough, I got this feeling of uneasiness. As much as Darkness does the most irrational things out of everyone in the party and nearly screws up any plan, I feel as if I this is something I want Darkness to avoid.

But this isn't my actual feelings is it, Tsukiyo?

If you want to say something about this, then go ahead and take over. Just what exaclty are you waiting for?

(In all honesty, I don't know how I feel about this chapter. The part where the 4 of them talk to each other in the hallway is a deviation from the LN where I'm trying to make Darkness less, 100% crazy Masochist, to standard pain/bondage only Masochist where anything psychological doesn't appeal to her. Maybe this is what makes Darkness "Darkness" to some people, but because of plot and shipping, I'm making more deviations for her.

Review on Oct. 8 from YukiMegi: Thanks for leaving another review, and yeah I sort of made Kosuke be that one guy from your group of friends who like to be the completely irritating on purpose for the memes but will help out regardless if you need it. I can also see your a man of culture as well from the Yunyun comment.

-For Darkness' father on her daughter liking Tsukiyo or seeing Tsukiyo be a demon, you gotta remember that Vergil is still taking over, which means white hair, ice white eyes, and different personality, so she sees him as a different person for now. For the demon part, he currently has a sling on that covers his arm and fingers, so nothing is visible, yet...

-Aqua is always a dick, but Kazuma is even more so. Thanks for the compliment, but I don't consider myself popular, maybe as a beginner-ish writer, but out of the other 83 existing Konosuba fics, yeah that's all of them that are in progress I think, they're still a lot more that are so much better than mine, and besides most of the reviews I get are either questions, concerns, or advice to make this shitty fic a bit better.

-Finally, no. Kosuke's talk was not a Re:Zero reference, I didn't mean it like that since Tsukiyo had always been near death, he hasn't died yet except when he got reincarnated. I meant the talk to be about having to deal with being a near death experience over and over again while getting healed and covering up the pain as if nothing happened, you can heal the body to make it 100% again, but the human mind will take 2x the effort since it's so much more fragile than you think. I will explain it better later….Contnu skool 2 git tat quik mafs.

Review on Oct. 13 from Gen2324: Thanks for leaving a review, I can't really say much in this because obvious spoilers, but I can say that the guards beating on Tsukiyo is Part of the problem, but not the entire problem. To repeat what was said in YukiMegi's reply "You can heal the body to make it 100% again, but the human mind will take 2x the effort since it's so much more fragile than you think. I will explain it better later…." I hope you enjoy reading the future chapters.


	29. Lost Patience and Resurfacing

By the time I made it back to the lounge area where the 3 royals were talking, it seemed that only Darkness' father and Walther were talking while Darkness was just there listening, acting as if she was interested in their conversation.

She took a glance at me and looked a bit uneasy, I said nothing and just went next to her to stand by and do nothing as of yet.

She motioned me to come near to whisper something, I put my head near her as she whispered, "I'm serious about what I said before, if you guys go against me you're gonna regret it."

"I'm just sitting on the sidelines for this, anything that happens will be on both of them. And If I feel like it, I'll cut them down where they stand." I whispered back, I will try and tolerate what happens today, but I don't hold promises…

It was at this time that Aqua and Kazuma came back and headed towards me and Darkness. I stepped aside, and just watched from the sidelines.

They seemed to have whispered something to each other before Darkness pulled them closer to probably give them the same conversation. Kazuma then leaned back up from hearing what Darkness said and asked her father, "My apologies for interrupting Master Dustiness, but seems that the young lady is getting rather impatient. Shall we start the interview?"

Her father readjusted the collar of his suit, "Why yes, I suppose we should. Come Mr. Walther, Lalatina, shall head towards the meeting room?" He said while getting slightly uneasy with Darkness' act.

We all started to head towards the door, but it seemed Darkness was the only one not standing, she had a slight grin on her face.

"Oh my, but it seems one of my heels broke. Mr Walther would you care to lend me a hand?" Darkness said while faking a innocent tone.

"Oh sure, I have no-" Walther cut off by Darkness' father as he was about to fall into her trap, "O-oh! Mr.Vergil, would you mind helping out Lalatina? I feel as if the possible groom and bride shouldn't have too much contact with each other before anything is final." He said in uneasy tone, he looked at Darkness with stern look, being cautious of her and her attempts to ruin the interview. They soon headed out of the lounge to go to the meeting room.

As I went towards her to lend her a hand, she grabbed it but started to give it a death grip from failed attempt. Using my demon arm that was still in the sling, I used it to grab part of her hair bring it closer to my face.

"If you've got a death wish, then be my guest. I'll be happy to strike you down right now." I said while giving her a death glare, she panted a bit from enjoying the pain from her hair and instantly loosen the grip, "Hey...that grip isn't too bad!" She said while panting from heat.

I dropped her head on the floor, grabbed her wrist and forcefully dragged her to the meeting room. I fixed her hair to be more normal, and motioned her to get in the room. She went in with a slightly red face from panting and composed herself before entering. Compose yourself, no need to lose it because of a masochist...

As we entered the room what we saw was a small glass table accompanied by 2 red leather couches with gold stitches and platinum trim. The room looked more like a makeshift library and break room combined together into one. Darkness' father was sitting on one of the couches while Walther was on the opposite side, Kazuma and Aqua were next to Darkness' father as Darkness sat next to him.

"Well, now that everyone's here, Allow me to reintroduce myself: My name is Alexei Barnes Walther. My job is to assist my father managing territory." Walther said in a calm and cheerful voice.

Darkness opened her mouth and replied in a less nobility like voice and more of standard Darkness, "I am Dustiness Ford Lalatina, but I'm sure you already know that. Even some son from a below average landlord should--Mmmmm!" Darkness tried to finish her sentence started to grit her teeth from pain.

I noticed that Kazuma was right next to her, stepping on her foot trying to shut her up.

Walther was confused by this, "Um, are-are you okay?" He asked with actual consideration.

"Oh it's nothing to be concerned about, Mr Walther." Kazuma replied with a calm tone, "It's just _that_ time of month for her. Poor Young Lady, always in pain…."

Darkness soon was completely red from embarrassment and tried to confront him, "Hey! What's this about-" She wasn't able to finish her sentence since Aqua stopped her, "Young Lady, as a young maiden myself, it's okay. No need to feel embarrassed about it, tis a normal occurrence!"

Darkness was not suppressing the pain anymore as she started to pant from the pain, "You're mistake Kazuma…" She mumbled in a sinister voice

I walked towards Kazuma and asked in a gentlemanly tone, "Mr. Kazuma would you mind not making the Young Lady feel embarrassed?" I said as I looked at him in his eyes, he understand stood what I wanted to say. He stepped off and replied in the same tone, "My apologies Mr. Vergil, I just usually say things that are needed to be said, even if it's unnecessary…"

I walked back to my position next to Darkness' father until Walther spoke up, "Oh what happened to your arm Mr. Vergil?" He asked in a curious tone.

I replied in a way that made sure he wouldn't ask anymore, "Oh just a small incident while exploring the outside world. Nothing too get worked up over."

"What happened?" He asked again, this guy can't take a hint can he…

"Just a small scuffle with a ogre king, my arm is currently healing after an unlucky shot. I'm also one of the training partners for the Young Lady when she wants to test herself against a veteran like myself." I replied in the same tone, had to modify the story a bit to make sure it was believable.

"Oh, that's quite surprising to hear. I've never heard or seen a veteran adventurer as young as you. How long have you been practicing?" He questioned with genuine curiosity.

"I've been practicing for about a decade. It started out when I was 8 when my mother was killed by demons. Me and my brother were separated for some time learning different techniques in swordplay, yet after all this time we seem to be almost equally matched while being self taught." I said as I recalled my past.

He looked at me at awe as I told my story, "My condolences for your mother, but wow, you must be the best at this point if you've been training all this time. And the fact that you have an equally talented brother must be pretty amazing, I can't even imagine all the rivalries over the years. It's makes me envious in a way."

"No, I'm nowhere near the best…" I said lowly, my efforts alone aren't enough! They never will... "I still need to get stronger...I need more power!"

Darkness' father cleared his throat before speaking, "I guess I should leave you five to yourselves. Feel free to head to the courtyard, the weather is quite nice at this time. I'll let you five have your fun, don't want to let this old dog ruin the moment!" He humbly as he whispered something to Kazuma and left with a smile on his face.

As soon as he left, we all agreed to head outside even though there would probably be snow everywhere.

As we walked towards the courtyard, I felt a sudden surge of energy rush towards the Demon Arm. It felt unnatural yet so familiar…

"Is everything alright?" Walther asked me since I wasn't walking anymore, as soon as he said that, all eyes were on me.

"...Yeah, I'm fine. Just a bit of pain from my arm…" I answered him, "You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up soon…" The other party soon left, not looking back.

I then went the opposite direction of them and walked into the nearest room that was unoccupied, locked the door, closed the curtains, and pulled up a chair.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _So, are you ready to man up and actually deal with this situation yourself?_

I...don't know...I've got no clue on how to deal with them, but I do have a small idea...

 _Whatever you decide, I don't care. I've done enough stalling, and I'm ready to kill your teammates at this point. Take over and call me when something actually worthwhile happens._

Can't do that yet, If I face them right now I'm just gonna snap at them and make things worse...That's the last thing we need in this situation. I need more time to think things through.

 _You've been given just almost 2 weeks, you're out of time!_

I know but…!

 _To hell with your reasoning! I'll deal with this myself!_

~ ~ ~ ~

If he wants to beat around the bush and take his sweet time with his decision, then I'll just have to force him to take over...

I unlatched the sling that was covering up the demon arm that I'd been hiding for the day, tossed the sling the side, and left the room. If someone sees me, that's on them if I cut them down.

I headed towards the courtyard where everyone else was probably relaxing, with my arm out in the open.

By the time I reached the courtyard, it seems that something else was going on while I was gone.

"UGH! I can't take this anymore!" Darkness said as she started to tear the bottom portion of her dressing anger in front of the five of us. By the time she was done, she pointed towards Walther and told him in a serious tone, "Hey Walther! You're a knight right? Well I'm a Crusader, come to the dojo with me. I'm going to test you on your skills as a knight!" Perfect...

I then walked out in the open and interrupted the breakdown that was going on, "How about I do you one better, and have you face me instead!" I said loud enough for the 4 of them to hear.

They all looked at me and were surprised to see me without my sling on. The one most surprised was Walther, "Hey...you're a…!?" He tried to answer but I cut him off as pulled out my revolver and shot the ground near him making him fall on his ass.

"A Demon. Yeah, I'm a Demon." I said finishing his sentence.

Kazuma started to slowly walk up to me as cautiously as possible while trying to persuade me, "Hey! Put the gun down, and lets talk about this alright! No need to be rash and-" I cut Kazuma off by summoning multiple transparent swords in columns of 4 pointed at him.

He held his hands up in easy defeat, "OK! OK! Calm down!" he said as he knew I wasn't going to hold back anymore and started to back off towards Aqua who was near the pond.

"Like I said, How about you face me Darkness? I'm so much more of an experienced swordsman than our dear friend Walther here. Compared to him, I'll make sure NOT to hold anything back!" I said as she was right next to the now scared Walther.

"Yeah! You're right! Hey Walther! Take a good look at Vergil, that's a glare of perfect battle waiting to happen! Come on, Follow us!" She said as she started to sprint walk towards the dojo.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

We were now in the dojo that the Dustiness household had. It was a pretty sizable one perfectly capable of fitting about 50 people.

I was on one side of the dojo, and Darkness was at the other. Walther, Kazuma, and Aqua were near the side with the perfect view on the both of us.

Darkness was about to toss me a wooden sword, but I stopped her, "Real swords only…" I said as I summoned Yamato.

"What? Are you sure?" She questioned, I replied back trying to get to her, "What? You want me to use a handicap and just use my scabbard? And here I thought that you were gonna fight me seriously…" I said in a fake disappointing tone.

She had a serious face on as she tossed the wooden swords aside and grabbed a real one from the storage room and unsheathed it, "Don't complain if I beat you." She said in a confident voice.

"What was that Lady Lalatina? I couldn't hear you well!" I said as I got into my battle stance.

"Don't call me by that name!" She said angrily, gripping her sword tightly.

Walther spoke up from sitting on the sidelines, "A-are you really going to point your sword at a Lady!?" He said in a concerned voice.

I answered him, "Yes I am, what are you going to do about it? Come here and stop me? Try it!" I said pointing the Yamato at him. He took a step back and stopped talking. Coward…

I was about to face Darkness again before she shouted, "Rookie mistake! Always keep your eyes on the enemy!"

I looked back as she was about to swing her sword vertically at me, she really has no skill in swordsmanship….

I stepped to the side allowing the sword to miss me by a full feet before taking the Yamato and shoving its hilt towards Darkness stomach. The normal reaction to this would've been someone staggering back and holding their stomach in pain, but because this was Darkness...

"Ah!" She moaned as she took a step back from getting hit.

Kazuma and Aqua had a look that went from cautious to plain disappointment.

Seeing the opportunity to strike again, I used the broad side of my scabbard to strike Darkness again on top of her head and do a jab at her stomach again pushing her back. She moaned both those times as she got on one knee.

She started to pant form the pain and get up slowly, "N-not yet…more…!"

Good, the more she gets up, the more I can bring her down.

She tried to rush at me again this time pointing her sword towards me in a thrustlike motion. I dodged once again, but instead of using my sword hilt to strike back, I caught the middle of the blade with my Demon arm and threw her back to her side of the dojo with a good amount of force to make her hit the wall.

I walked up to her to try and finish her only to see her holding red face in both hands while panting harder in pleasure, "hehehe, this...this the best battle I've been in!" she said to herself she was enjoying this situation.

"Please yield Lady Dustiness! The match is over and you're clearly no match for him, please don't make this harder for yourself!" Walther shouted as he was started to fear for Darkness safety.

Darkness started to get up and ab her sword again, and charged at me again…

Once again, I dodged and hit her hard with my scabbard on her head making her moan in pleasure and step back.

This constant cycle of dodging and Darkness getting hurt/turned on continued for another 30-40 minutes, and with each strike I land and moan Darkness lets out, I continued to get more angry and use more force in each strike.

Most of Darkness clothes were tattered, and she was bruised almost everywhere on her arms, stomach, and legs.

"H-hey, don't you think you're overdoing it a bit Vergil? I know Darkness isn't the best to deal with but this is taking it a little far…" Aqua said in a scared voice seeing how much red I was seeing.

Walther spoke up in a heroic manner, "Lady Dustiness please! Switch with me! I can't see you bear this pain any longer, let me help you!"

"No!" She said while trying to catch her breath, "This...this is the most fun I've had in a long...long time! I can't let this opportunity go!"

She tried rushing at me once more with her sword pointing at me, I didn't move a muscle and let the sword hit me straight through the stomach.

Everyone was surprised, especially Darkness since she was starting tremble from what she just did, "W-why! Why didn't you move!?" she tried let go of the sword as her hands were shaking uncontrollably, but I didn't let her as I grabbed her hands and forced her to hold onto the sword grip as I got closer to her with the sword going deeper into my stomach.

"Something like this…" I said while getting closer to her, "...Is nothing!" I used my demon arm to summon the transparent version of the arm and grabbed Darkness' head and slammed it on the ground multiple times leaving a sizeable crater before launching her towards the wall with enough force to make a large crack.

"Darkness!" "Lady Dustiness!" Kazuma, Aqua, and Walther shouted as they rushed over to her to help.

I took the sword that that still in my stomach and pulled it out the same way it came in and tossed it to the side. I started to walk over to where Darkness was and see that she was now unconscious.

I pulled out the Yamato from its scabbard revealing the blade. Walther who was standing next to Darkness looked towards me and saw me walking over to them, tried to block my way. I used my demon arm to grab his shin and throw him over near the door that we came in from.

Kazuma and Aqua got up and tried to do the same thing, "We won't let you near her if there's two of us!" Kazuma said as he got into a battle stance with Aqua, "I knew you were a bad demon from the start, It'll be satisfying to finally purify scum like you!" Aqua said with a cocky tone.

I snapped my fingers and summoned multiple swords above them and made them fall, stopping them in their tracks (Heavy Rain Swords)

They looked around them and saw the transparent swords around them, "Hey, I can't move! What kind of cheap tactic is this!?" Aqua shouted as she struggled to move.

I walked passed them towards Darkness and saw her flat on her back still unconscious. I gripped Yamato backwards as the blade was now pointing downwards to Darkness' chest.

"Hey wait! Don't do it!" Kazuma yelled as he was trying to get free.

I breathed in deeply before putting in all of my force to stab Darkness…

...Until the Demon Arm started to glow brightly and try to stop me from stabbing her.

"Well…" I said while struggling to fight against Tsukiyo, "Finally gonna stop me from hurting your "precious" friend Tsukiyo?" It was at this time that I felt my strength start to fade as well as my vision.

I fought back with all my might back at him, "Don't think that you'll take back control that easily!" I said in a strained voice.

Because of the fact that I summoned the Yamato for about 40 constant minutes while using some of my magic, a good chunk of my mana was gone. So I was already at a disadvantage to the point where struggling wouldn't change anything.

My strength was fading fast, and now... _I was forced back into a spirit in his arm…_

 _Tsukiyo finally took back controls of his own body…_

I fell into the ground on my knees next to Darkness' unconscious and….holy shit her body's almost exposed! What in the actual fuck!?

I jumped back getting away from Darkness until I was soon tackled by two people.

"I got him Aqua! Quick, Perform Purification!" Kazuma said as he tried to hold me down in the ground.

"Hey! Vergil's not controlling me anymore! You can get off!" I said while trying to push him off, holy shit...he looks like a skinny weak kid but he weighs about metric fuck ton for some reason!

"Oh no! I'm not falling for that, that easily! Do it Aqua!" Kazuma said as he wouldn't let me up.

"I'm going to backhand the weeaboo out of you when you get off you know!" I threaten Kazuma as he still pinned me down.

Surprisingly, he got off of me when I said that and lent me a hand...I declined it and got up on my own.

"Tsukiyo!? It's really you!" Kazuma said as he was surprised to finally see me not being controlled anymore.

"Yeah, it is. Lose some weight will ya? You're just as heavy as Aqua when she gets shitfaced drunk…" I said while trying to crack my back.

"Hey! It's rude to say that a lady is heavy in front of you, you know!" Aqua complained as she glared at me with tears in her eyes.

I went up to her face and told her, "You. Are. HEAVY."

" 'GOD BLOW' " she punched me in the face while while bawling her face out.

I got knocked down flat on my ass when I got punched, Kazuma started to laugh uncontrollably when he saw that.

The only set of doors that lead out of here started to open as a figure poked his head here and spoke out loud, "Hey I heard that you guys went to the dojo, so brought some beverages for you lot to enjo-" The man was cut off when he saw the state of the room, the unconscious guy near the door, the unconscious Darkness, and my arm. He dropped the beverages that he brought with them as the glass and metal tray hit the ground making a loud crash noise.

"...we can explain...all of this." Kazuma said as the figure in the doorway had a blank expression with eyes that were filled with rage and fury.

"...off with their heads." He said with a tone with no emotion.

The three of us said in unison and panic filled in out voices, "Wait, we can explain this!"

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

After a long, long time of explaining and struggling not to get decapitated we were sort of able to explain this situation, while Kazuma explained what they planned.

I had to properly reintroduce myself, not as Vergil, but as a teammate of Darkness and a demon.

The man who was unconscious near the doorway was Alexei Barnes Walther, someone who

was going to marry Darkness after she promised the guy's Father a favor. Also I learned that she was a nobility that was in the top 0.1% in the nation...so I was fucking right on my theory!

The old man who was sitting across from me on the sofa was the one who owned the Mansion and was Darkness' Father. Walther, who was not unconscious anymore from being treated by Aqua, was sitting right next to him with his eyes on the three of us. Darkness was laying down in the couch with her father across from me with her head on her father's lap.

Darkness' Father finally spoke after we told him and Walther everything, "This is...a lot to take in…You see, my daughter isn't too good with people. You've probably experienced that since, she doesn't talk about herself at all, especially when it comes to her background…" He said while caressing Darkness' head that was on his lap.

"Months ago, everyday she left to go out and adventure, she always went to the Eris church and prayed. She prayed to the Goddess Eris, just to have some comrades to adventure with since most of the people she adventures with are always gone the next day, so you could imagine my face when she made her first friend in the form of a thief girl…" He said smiling gently reminiscing of the happiest time Darkness experienced.

"This family hasn't been doing to well with the death of Lalatina's mother when she was very young. I never remarried because of the pain, yet I tried raising her the best way I can as a single father." His tone went from happy reminiscing to sorrow as he remembered the pain, "I was always trying to care for her the best I can while keeping her freedom in mind, but I guess that backfired on me in the long run hasn't it?"

I was sort of getting teary eyed when I was listening to his story, Hey! Who's cutting them damn onions!?

Walther who was silent for the entirety finally spoke up, "I think Lalatina is a charming woman and just as strong as a man, probably even more, but I don't think I could be able take away her freedom of wanting to go out and explore the world as a Crusader. If I did that, I'd never be able to forgive myself." He said this in a genuine voice.

Darkness Father spoke up after that, "Well, that's a shame then Mr. Walther…" he said in sorrow, did he really want this guy to marry her?

"...But there's a different issue that I need to address…" He said as his voice went from sad to serious as he looked at me. Shiiiit….

"Tsukiyo was it? If I recall from memory, It seems that my daughter has taken quite a liking to you despite your…"irregularity"...She would act different whenever I questioned your name to her. Tell me, what's your relationship to her?" He said this as he gave me a death glare that could probably rival Vergil if he had his own body.

"Sir, I have absolutely no idea and I'm being honest. I'll admit that your daughter is beautiful, and that I might have some feeling for her, I don't know if those feelings are genuine or hormones, but other than that, I haven't got a clue." I said in the calmest tone I could muster, his glare is very intimidating…

"Hmmm..." He closed his eyes as he thought about my response, please don't send me to the fantasy world gulag…"Alright then...If my daughter is willing to trust you despite your abnormality, then I can too...but to an extent"

His face went from serious serious back to gentle as he told us, "The three of you, I beg of you: Please keep my daughter safe, don't let her do any foolish things, and watch over her. That's all I want as a Father who constantly worries…"

"We will!" Kazuma said brightly at Darkness' father, I smiled faintly, I wasn't sure or not if I could keep my promise to him sadly.

"Mmmm...Ugh...My head...Meeting room?...Oh..right..." Darkness said as she was finally starting to wake up. She held her head as she probably couldn't remember what happened in the dojo.

"Oh hey, you're awake. Guess what me too, it's not Vergil anymore…" I said as I made a small wave towards her.

Darkness had hinted at being glad that I was back in the form of a smile, but that changed into a half smirk and half troubled face as soon as soon as something came to mind. Her face flushed to a bright red as she said the following, "Dear Father, Mr. Walther. Please pretend that nothing happened today, I've been keeping a secret from all of you and I can't keep it hidden anymore…" She said in a joyous tone, I didn't like this, too goddamn suspicious…

"B-but, I-I'm actually…" She tried to say this confidently but failed as her voice went from loud and confident to low and unsure. She inhaled deeply before saying something that made my heart stop...in the worst way possible, "I'm actually pregnant with Tsukiyo's child!" She said loudly in confide-

What…? EXCUSE FUCKING ME, BUT WHAT!?

Vergil, what happened in those two weeks that I was out? WHAT CLUSTERFUCK OF EVENTS HAD HAPPENED, THAT MADE ME BONE DARKNESS AND GET HER PREGNANT?! I NEED TO KNOW THIS!

I'm abso-fucking-lutely speechless on this! "Holy shit, you madman! You've actually done it and became an adult with Darkness!" "I-I need to tell Megumin about this, no...Everyone, about this!" Kazuma and Aqua said as they started to freak the fuck out and going apeshit!

Walther had a gentle smile on as he saw us freak out, "Oh well that's a shame. If she is bearing your child, then I have no choice but to give up." He said as he stood up and started to head towards the doorway, "I give you my congratulation you two, I'm sure you'll have a nice life together!" He said happily as he left.

I leaned back on the sofa taking in everything that was happening until I felt a solid object hit my lower back, when I pulled it out it was the Blue Rose….Bingo!

I started to aim the revolver towards my head until Kazuma slapped my hand making the revolver fall to the ground making an audible thud sound.

He looked at me with serious eyes, "Don't think I'm going to let you get away from this problem easily…"

Darkness father on the other hand cried literal tears of joy, "M-my first….Grandson….My First Grandson!"

I walked up to Darkness as she was still blushing madly and put both of my hands on her shoulders, I told her in a serious tone, "Tell me..Is this really true, causes it if is...I'm gonna summon a portal and push you into it, alone…"

She looked towards the door where Walther left and exhaled before telling me, "I-It's not true, it was just a story to tell to Walther for him to get off my back on this marriage thing…" She said while slightly trembling, I wasn't sure if it was from me touching her or me being very up close, but as soon as she told me that I used my Demon Arm to grab her neck and damn near strangle her to death.

"Y-yeah! This is Amazing! hehehehe!" She said as she to drool a bit and pant from pleasure, I stopped choking her and just just chokeslammed her to the ground knocking her out unconscious again…

"The Child!" Darkness father squealed as he saw me chokeslam his daughter.

I told him what Darkness said and as soon as he understood, he flopped back into the sofa and said in a really disappointed voice, "Oh...is that so…"

We waited another 20-30 minutes for Darkness to regain consciousness, and after she did we all decided to head back to our mansion since she wasn't able to get married to Walther.

We exited the Royal mansion from the front doors where a fancy silver, gold, and wooden carriage waited for us. Darkness said her final goodbyes to her Father as she as repeatedly apologizing for giving him false hope.

As we headed towards the carriage, Darkness Father grabbed my shoulder gently and pulled me to the side, "Now, I want you hear me out right now. While my daughter does indeed trust you as a companion, as do I as a companion of hers, I do recall you saving her from danger a couple of times, and I thank you for that. It means the world to me knowing that she has a companion willing to risk his life for her, but know this...if you do as much as make her cry with ill-nature in mind, I will gather up all the adventurers, bounty hunters, or whatever in mind in nearby regions and send out a Hunting Party for you with the reward being everything you own. It doesn't matter that you're a teammate of hers, just don't make her cry...Are We Clear?" He said with the deadliest tone I've ever heard.

"Yeah, clear…" Is all I could say, but holy shit he's terrifying! I know fathers are somewhat supposed to be protective of their daughters but damn! This isn't an overprotective parent anymore, it's an overprotective King in place of a Military Commander!

His face went from murderous to gentle in a snap as he wished us luck on our way back to Axel.

As soon as we finally left the front yard of the Royal mansion, Darkness asked me what her father told me when he pulled me to the side. I waved it off by telling her that it was just the same thing he told me before, protect her from doing dumb shit and make sure he as some common sense.

Seeing how calm I was at the moment Kazuma said in a happy and careless tone, "Man, today was pretty interesting, with all the things that happen you'd think we'd be lying if we told anyone what we experienced with no context. But at least we got you back Tsukiyo! To be honest, Vergil was kind of a pain in the ass, calling me a brat, being so stuck up, and generally looking down on us. How about I treat you to a round back at the Tavern, what do you say?"

All of them looked at me with genuine smiles, but sadly I couldn't look at them as teammates, or even as friends anymore.

"Sorry for saying this, but could you leave me alone for a while? I got some things to sort out internally…" I said as I didn't even want to look at them at this point.

"Oh right," Aqua said as she spoke up, "You probably have to talk to Vergil after the stunt he pulled, Don't worry we'll give you some Alone time with him." Aqua said as she gave a jokingly tease at me.

It wasn't even that I needed to sort out, but I just need more time to finalize something…

I thought for about 2 and a half to about 3 hours before we finally got back to the Manson were a small girl in black with a pink skirt was waiting outside looking determined. I didn't not recognize her whatsoever, but that didn't matter, I made up my mind on what to do next to deal with these feelings…

When we got out of the carriage and opened the gate, the other girl in black asked me, "Excuse me but is Megumin In there? Can you tell her that her rival is waiting for outside to settle this rivalry between us." She said in a low voice from shyness.

"No need, I was just about ready to come out and greet Darkness from coming back. Besides, do I know you random stranger outside our mansion?" Megumin said as she went up to Darkness to greet her with a small black cat in her arms. The cat looked pretty adorable with it's little wings on its back, wait wings?

The small girl that was waiting outside became sad and had tears in her eyes when she heard Megumin say that, "Megumin, you're so mean with those jokes of yours!"

Kazuma took the initiative to speak up, "Alright, well now that we're all outside, let's head to the Tavern and get that drink I promised, right Tsukiyo? Tsukiyo?" Kazuma asked as he saw me look at the mansion with a blank gaze.

"I think….I might leave for a while…."

(...And there you have it. The return of Tsukiyo from Vergil's control after almost 2 weeks...only to leave his teammates? This idea is something I had planned from the moment Darkness came back to inform the group of her problem, also I'm going to be writing/typing off record from the LN. Which means that everything that comes after this will be from complete imagination and inspiration from my mind, it'll be similar to the time Kazuma joined Dust's group and Dust to Kazuma's group.. The only problem is that I don't know how much chapters this'll last for…

This chapter was made a lot longer since there was a holiday on Thurs. so no college, yeeee….t

But other than that, I feel like is chapter was a bit rushed, tell me what you think. By the way, remember when I said that I got a bit inspired from Doom Guy the anime (Goblin Slayer) and the new movie 'Venom'? Yeah….

(I don't mean that in terms of literally biting peoples head off…)

Opinion (review) posted on Oct. 14 by DxHologram: Thanks for your opinion on the ship, hope you enjoy the future chapters!

Review posted in Oct. 14 by Guest Account, Saru: Thanks for your thoughts in the Fic., and yeah, I can understand what you think. The way I implemented the Buster Arm in this fic. was too tame and not really explored upon. And about the too close to canon is also another really good point since that's the #1 problem with me as a Fic. Writer, is that I stick too close to canon and don't expand on the elements that could be used and made a lot more interesting. That is why I'm going off the radar in the next couple of chapters to see if I can make up for lost opportunities and reactions that would've been perfect in the beginning. Other than that, thanks for your opinion on the interactions with Darkness and Tsukiyo.

Review posted by the man, the myth, the legend YukiMegi on Oct. 14: Thanks for your review in this chapter, and please quiet down for your family. I already have people looking at me as if I'm insane, and to an extent I sort of am, but I don't need to influence another person…The part where Vergil aimed the revolver at Kazuma's schlong was a spur of the moment idea when I was eating lunch at one point and thought, 'Yeah...that could work.' Which is basically the mentality I have when thinking up some funny moments. I'm sort of glad that you understand the situation I forced on Tsukiyo, and am sorry that you had to experience that even if I am some random stranger on the net. It's ok if your not much of a DMC fan, but the fact that you can get some references from time to time is actually impressive, points to you my dude. You can do the sciences, but if you go Breaking Bad, you're legally obligated to give me some of the good shit.

Review posted on Oct. 16 by Gen2324: Thanks for reading this chapter, and yeah, when stupid shit is going on constantly you learn to forget what your doing and somehow get forced into the situation by outside forces that wants you to suffer. Aiming a gun at a mans dong is definitely a good tactic to use for intimidation, don't ask how I know…As for your question: Yes.

Long as hell Paragraph reviews posted on Oct. 16 by Lil'Manuel.G: Goddamn my dude, you wrote an entire essay for a story that's isn't even done/good. Where do I start...(Random boi: from the top, dur hur!) Alright, time for my turn on the essay...

Thanks for your opinion on the story so far, but as much as I don't like being a masochist of sort, I will continue to state this again and again: This story isn't really as good as most people make it to be. Why? Because this story doesn't have as much creativity in it as other Fic.'s since its 90% rehash of the Light Novel. Of course the added twists that I place in are sort of interesting to an extent, other than that, not much is really different. I even snuck this opinion in on a chapter, that I forgot, in the form of Tsukiyo's opinion in his role in the group.

Tsukiyo as an OC is a surprisingly, but not surprisingly, mix between some of my personality and a person I'd probably like to be someday. Call it cliche, it doesn't matter to me, I just wanted to state that. But, yeah, even though Tsukiyo is a bit more Mature than the rest of the group, He's meant to be sort of the secondary main character next to Kazuma since I tried to plan this Fic. to have both of them go through the bullshit that is the stupid backwards ass fantasy world, but I feel like I just made Tsukiyo the primary, which is sort of normal for most FanFic.'s, but not in mine...Also, Tsukiyo doesn't want to be like Vergil or Kosuke (Dante), he wanted to be like ya boi Nero…but not really...

Your comment on Chap 27 though, sort of got me smiling like a madman since, it's gonna be sort of the exact opposite of that. You got a small hint if that from the last sentence of this Chapter. You'll understand why Tsukiyo is the way he is right now, and to be honest, you might be either disappointed from the reason, or understanding of it if you were to think about it using both realistic-ish logic and bullshit anime logic. Thus, the creation of going off the grid for the next couple of chapters.

Other than that, thanks for enjoying my still pretty shitty Fic. Also you'd be pretty annoyed if some random dude impersonated your brother from the clothing to the personality, wouldn't you?

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

P.S: Lets play a drinking game! People of age use vodka, underage use Kool-aid spiked with fun dip: Take a shot/sip everytime this story, review responses, or writer comments, says "Sort of" or "Not Really". Have fun, and make sure to drink in Moderation, not depression, wait til you're in your late 30's/early 40's to do that...

P.S.S: I was gonna make an abortion comment when Darkness faked being pregnant, but decided against it since it was probably going too far...Goddamn me and my fucked up mind…

P.S.S.S: Who was on any kind of Social Media when Youtube went down on Tuesday night? I was there, and the internet went on a fucking Crusade when it happened, was #1 on both Twitter and Reddit. It had a lot of memes and jokes made 2-3 hours after...Fucking hilarious...


	30. Burning Bridges and Leaving(Off Grid P1)

"I think….I might leave for a while…." I said as I stared blankly at the mansion in front of me.

"Huh?" The five of them said in confusion, the girl in black and pink also said that, but she was probably just as confused as the other 4.

"Oh! That's a funny joke right there, you almost got me for a sec-" Kazuma laughed off the comment as he tried to grab my shoulder and guide me to the town. I just swatted his away before he could get near.

"I'm serious, I'm pretty sure I might leave for a while.." I said in a half serious half dead tone.

"Ok, well Why? What's wrong?" Kazuma asked confusedly.

"Come on, don't act dumb...you know why…" I said not wanting to overextend this conversation.

"No Seriously, I don't know why. Tell me." He said, I was starting to get a bit frustrated at the fact that forgot what they did.

"You guys basically threw me under the bus, with literally every adventurer in town, after the Mobile Base incident!" I said angrily, Kazuma looked at me with pity and said, "You're still mad about all that?"

This fucking guy….

"Of course I'm still fucking mad! My teammates abandoned me, no one but the guild staff stood up for me, and because of the shit that happened in the prison, I nearly died, again!" I said while slightly venting before stopping myself and calming myself down, "The reason I'm not massively flipping shit right now is because I managed to vent out about 40% of my anger while Vergil took over. Believe me, if I saw you guys while I was venting out, multiple fights would've broken out…"

Aqua spoke up and said in a innocent voice, "Well, that's all over now so I don't think you should be holding onto the past that heavily…" I turned to her and and retorted, "I don't want to hear that from the first teammate to abandon me when Sena came for me! You shut the hell up!"

She got mad and started to get in my face, "Hah!? Are you really gonna say that to me, someone who healed you multiple times and consoled you in your time of trauma!? Besides Wiz was right next to me when she abandoned you too! Why aren't you going after her!?"

"Wiz is a separate problem in itself, so she gets to be off the hook. Besides, once you backstab someone there's almost no going back when Prison is involved!" I said angrily back at her face.

"Alright fine!" Aqua said as she angrily stomped off into the mansion, "If you're gonna be so ungrateful of a Goddess' services, then maybe I should grab all your stuff and throw it out in the streets!"

I used Snatch to grab Aqua feet and her back where the four of us were standing, "Like hell you're gonna touch my shit!" I shouted as she struggled to break out of my grip. Megumin, Darkness, and the other girl was standing there with uncomfortable stares.

"H-hey, calm down guys...I don't think we should be-" Megumin tried to stop our fighting but me and Aqua cut her off before she could even finish, "But out loli terrorist!" She looked as if she just got backstabbed herself as she repeated the word ' loli terrorist' a couple of times before she started to chant her Explosion spell angrily.

"No, no, no, no, no! You are NOT gonna blow up our only home! We got this illegally, and I'd rather not get another one the same way!" Kazuma said as he rushed over to Megumin and started to cover her mouth and stop her. The other girl in black who called out to Megumin started to look panicked as she didn't know what to do in a situation like this.

I let go of Aqua's leg and made her fall in the front steps, as I walked in the Mansion and headed to my room. It was pointless trying to do almost anything anymore, I just needed to get out…

When I made it there, the only thing, surprisingly, I needed to grab was just the Red Queen since I already had a thick cloak on. As soon as I got it and placed it on my back, Darkness was next to the doorway peeking in with a concerned face.

"Are you really gonna leave?" she asked in a sad tone.

I remembered what her father said back in his mansion as it echoed in my head, ' _...It seems that my daughter has taken quite a liking to you…if you make her cry with ill intentions, I will send out a hunting party...'_ , shit, how do I deal with this…

"Yeah, I don't have much of a choice at this point. I need to get away before things get worse with me." I said in calmest voice I could muster up.

"Will you be back though?" She said in a hopeful voice

"Maybe. I don't know how long I'll be gone for, maybe days, weeks, or months. But if gone for at least half a year, just assume that I'm not coming back." I said while trying to not make much eye contact with her.

I as I tried to walk past her and get out of this mansion, I was soon blocked by her, "Let me come with you then!" She said in a determined voice.

"Sorry, but I have to do this alone. It's nothing personal, really…" She still didn't get out of the way as she insisted to come with me.

"Alright fine, Go get into your armour and meet me in the Tavern." I said as I lied to get her off my back.

"Do you really mean that?" She said as she got close to me and eyed me suspiciously.

I didn't move an inch as she got closer to me as said "I Mean that, now hurry up. If we don't leave now, Megumin, Aqua, and Kazuma will probably stop us if we take too long to leave. Go get changed, grab some necessities, money, and meet me in the Tavern." I said as I continued to lie to her face.

After a while of observing and losing suspicion of me, she agreed to do so with a happy smile as she turned around. What I did next was hard for me to do, but necessary to make sure she doesn't get caught up in anything that had to do with me.

The moment she turned around to head to her room, I pulled out my Blue Rose and pistol whipped her in the back of her head hard, making sure she would get knocked out, 3rd time this day, pretty unlucky...She hit didn't hit the floor as I managed to catch her before she did. I brought her to her room and laid her in her bed, Sorry Darkness, but this is something I have to deal with myself.

I soon left her room, and exited the mansion out one of the windows just in case Kazuma or Megumin was waiting downstairs.

I soon headed towards the Tavern where I'd need to talk to Linda for something important.

While walking down into town, all I could see around me was the white hell that was covering the rooftops and floor, Snow. I sighed in defeat, knowing that I'd have to experience another 3-4 months of shitty snow…

I somewhat got this eerie feeling of this town feeling a lot bigger than it used to, since there are pockets and pockets of empty space all around the stores and buildings. The fruit stalls that used to be there would gone for the next couple of months, so for now the entire place felt a lot bigger.

By the time I got to the Tavern, where I was thankfully greeted by a immense blast of of warm air when I entered the doors, I looked around and didn't see much difference from the atmosphere. Adventurers who were probably done for the season were not in any armour nor did they carry any weapons, were now in warm sweaters, coats, and cotton trousers where the ends were stuffed into their boots.

The smell of booze and wine was a lot stronger than before, probably because of the fact that they didn't need to wake up early for a quest or job.

As I looked around in the Tavern, looking at all the Adventurers faces, I can't help but feel nothing for them, not after they all abandoned me after the Destroyer fiasco…

I heard footsteps walk up to me with a familiar but gentle voice calling out to me, "Hello, Welcome to the Tavern. How can I...Tsukiyo? Is that you?" Linda called out to me as she was now wearing a slightly thicker shirt that was less revealing than her normal one, but had the same style of color, pattern, and design like the normal one the staff would usually wear.

Compared to everyone else, I can at least trust Linda and the other staff members. "Oh Hey Linda, yeah I'm back now." I answered back as she was now smiling gently.

"It's so good to see you again. I heard what happened in the trial, to think a member of the Dustiness household would be part of your party, your party really is full of surprises." She said as she continued to smile brightly, so wholesome...so blinding…

"Also...a couple of rumors were flying around when the trial was over," She said in an uneasy voice, oh boy… "Something about getting attacked by guards in the middle of the night, a demon controlling you, and you having a brother…" She said as she speculated literally 3 things that just happened. Wait, did she just mention my brother…!?

"Hold on, You know about my older brother?" I said as I was both feeling hopeful, but extremely fearful. Please don't tell me he killed himself and left mom alone...

"Yeah, I think his name was...Kosuke? Tall guy, about mid 20's, black hair, red coat. Very cocky at times..." she said as she tried to recall the man who claimed to be my brother. My hope was killed, but at least my fear was gone.

"Oh there he is!" she said as she pointed towards the same tall guy in his mid 20's with black hair and a red coat while laying down in a booth bored out of his mind...While sitting in front of a blond woman with long braided hair in a white long sleeve and a dark blue short dress with black pants on just about the same age eating what looks to be some dank Spaghet...

Now you could assume that this was probably a date and Kosuke is just being Kosuke, but...she had 2 pistols holstered in her hips and was an elf by the looks of the pointy knife tipped ears...Is this really happening? Like seriously, is this really the gonna happen?

The blond woman who was eating looked at me and pointed at me, making Kosuke sit up and call towards me, "Hey Kid! You're finally awake! Bring back my big bro, I feel like talking to him more!" He said in a careless tone, I couldn't help but feel immense hate for him from my arm. Looks like they got to meet each other then, what a missed opportunity…

I walked up to where Kosuke and the blond woman sat at and asked him, "Is she what I think she is?" He pondered the thought for a while and replied, "Kinda? But she isn't a demon or a creation, she's just a normal elf girl but not really…"

The woman who was eating her spaghet wiped her mouth with a tablecloth and introduced herself, "My Name is Zofia of the Northern Elf Clan, but this idiot here," she says and she points to Kosuke, "Refers to me as 'Trish', it's within your best interest to not refer me as that…" She says in both a very elegant, but carefree tone.

Goddammit, this is happening then…

"You know I'd introduce myself, but I have a feeling Kosuke already told you about me, didn't he?" I asked, but to my surprise she looked at me for a moment and denied it.

Kosuke said while pouting a bit, "Well you didn't introduce me to your friends, so why should introduce you to my friends…" This fucking guy….

Ignoring Kosuke and his attitude, I introduced myself to Zofia, "My Name is Tsukiyo Nakano, and as you can see I'm a demon sort of like Kosuke but not as strong as him." I said while showing her my arm.

She made a sly smile and replied, "I'm just kidding about not knowing you, Kosuke already told me the first day he met you. I just wanted to see if you took the bait, and I must say, I am surprised…" The fucking girl…

Kosuke now going back to normal asked me what I was doing alone and "helpless" in this Tavern. I told him the situation I was in and told him about leaving my party for a while to cool off.

"Why don't you come with us and train? Believe it or not, I actually run my own company and we're actually doing pretty good in terms of our services. Pays not too shabby, and we're basically fighting stuff everyday..." Kosuke mentioned as he was stealing pieces of meat from Zofia's spaghet…

I looked at him dead on and asked him, "Is it _'Devil May Cry'_ "?, he tried to hide his smile when I asked him that, "...maybe" he said. Why am I not surprised...

I thought about this for a while, but sadly had to refuse, "Thanks for the offer, but I'm gonna have to say no. I just need some time to be alone and not try to blow a fuse whenever I think about my party. Sorry"

Kosuke looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder and told me in a sincere voice, "Are you really gonna leave your girlfriend behind too, just to deal with your edgy problems?"

Zofia's ears perked in and soon she was interested in the conversation, "Ooooh, you got a girlfriend huh? Do tell!" I'm already dealing with Kosuke, I don't need a 2.0 version right now…

I was starting to get really uncomfortable with this situation…, "She's not my girlfriend, she's just a masochistic Crusader who has no morals." I answered back in annoyance

"Aww, he so shy about it…" Zofia said "I remember when I was that young, so innocent and happy. Then the world took a shit on me…" Her attitude grew sour as she recalled her past.

Kosuke was next to tease me, "You shouldn't ditch her kid. She's got a big bust and a hard on for the weird shit, now that's a keeper in my books!"

I started to stand up and go talk to Linda for the favor I needed, leaving both Kosuke and Zofia to themselves, "Oh come on! We were just joking, Come back! Wilson! Wilson I'm sorry! WILSON!" Kosuke called out as he got on his knees and stretch his right arm at me.

"Shut up!" I retorted back at him as he was still on his knees, He gave me the biggest shitstain of a smirk I've ever seen and told me, "You mad bro?" My blood pressure is taking a lot of abuse from this guy…

As soon as I found Linda again, who was now in her usual spot in front of the counter, I went and asked for some favors only she could do.

"Wait, let me get this straight...you want to know what's the nearest town next to us, travel there for a while, and not want any of this info to be told to your party?" She asked in a concerned voice, "What's wrong? What happened to the friendship you five shared?"

"That friendship of ours sort of went down the drain when all of them, including most of the adventurers in the town, abandoned me when the Destroyer core destroyed the landlord mansion. You've seen that first hand since you were one of the only people to stand up for me at the time. I just need some time to cool off my head and see what I think of the situation after. This is the only thing I'm asking for, please help me just this one time." I pleaded her as she was pondering the decision.

She gave me a deep sigh and look of defeat as she looked me head on and gave me the info I needed, "There's a small village that likes to keep to themselves about 50 miles northwest from here. They've got a village elder who accepts all race whether it be lizard people, dwarves, or elves, but I'm not sure if they'll take kindly to demons...The next carriage is scheduled in another 40 minutes in the northern gates but...are you really sure about this?" She asked me in the same tone of concern.

"Yeah, I am. Don't worry, some of the anger is out of my system, all that's left is to take care of the rest and try to come to terms with it." I said as I gave her a small smile of assurance.

I was about to leave the tavern and meet up at the northern gates, before she called out to me, "Here, take this." She said as she tossed me a small pouch of eris, "I was going to give this to you as a gift for being a splendid employee, but I guess this situation will have to do for now. Good luck on your journey." She said as she gave me a warm smile and a goodbye wave.

I waved back and exited the Tavern heading to the Northern gates where a small convoy of carriages waited to leave.

It took about 20-25 minutes to get from the lower middle of Axel to the Northern gates. By the time I got there, it looked like they were about to leave early from the amount of dwarves that were loading up in the carriages.

"Hey Wait up!" I shouted as I ran as fast as I could to make sure they didn't leave without me.

When they heard me, drivers and passengers heading to the village gave me a look of strangeness, probably cause my arm.

I soon caught up to the driver and told him that I'd be coming with them to the village, He still gave me this weird look and asked for the payment. I gave him the bag and waited as he checked it to make sure it was enough. He looked back at me and motioned me to get in.

I headed towards the back where it opened and jumped in. There was 2 dwarves with long beards sitting side by side, a lizard man that looked like a Komodo dragon and was a swol boi, and a small elf woman with red hair, glasses, and a clipboard who was taking a nap.

I took the liberty of sitting by the lizard man and hoping that the village could accept me for awhile before leaving. If not, then it's gonna be a long trip walking back to Axel.

The silence that was going on in the carriage ride was deafening. It wasn't even an hour yet none of them spoke a word to me. It was just constant silence with the occasional glance at me or my arm.

I started to hum a small tune from the silence and as soon as I started, my head was swaying to the beat and words were starting to form and a song was sung to make this atmosphere less uncomfortable…

(Lift Off by Mike Shinoda, Feat. Chino from Deftones and MGK, yes I know about Rap Devil and Killshot, but 'Liftoff' is still such an amazing song.)

 _I'm off of the earth, on a ride...alone…_

 _Lift off like Virgin Galactic,_

 _My Richard's too Branson, to fuck with you bastards_

 _Very legendary, that's a matter of fact_

 _Shit, you're the opposite of stars_

 _Like rats spelled backwards_

 _I flow poems out to Saturn and passed it_

 _Easy as a standard anti-gravity back flip_

 _Satellite tracking can't map up my tactics_

 _I spit the same shit they split an atom in half with_

 _No, it's not what I want but it had to be_

 _I spent 6 months just recharging my battery_

 _Imagine me quitting, what a travesty that'd be_

 _Your space shuttle challengers are nothing but tragedies_

 _So take care on the path that you're headed_

 _I'm the father to your style, don't you ever forget it_

 _I don't drop mics, only let it smoke where I set it_

 _And I don't play even when they press it, get it?_

 _I'm off of the earth, on a ride….alone_

 _I'm drifting away, out of time...I flow_

 _Away from the truth..._

 _Away from the night..._

 _Away from the day..._

 _I'm off of the earth, on a ride….alone_

I decided not to sing the rest from this uncomfortable feeling while singing it since I was getting stares from all three of them, not in disgust, but in confusion. I stayed silent for the rest of the trip to not make things any more awkward than they were.

It took about 2 hours to get to the village where I'd be staying at for the moment, and by the looks of it, it was really minimalistic compared to Axel.

Most of the building there seemed to be either a 1 or 2 floor building. There was no bright color that screamed at you to look to them, it was either a neutral brown or stone black. Majority of the houses were made from brick and stone, but had wooden roofs with stone tiling. Windows in every building had no glass, it was either open or had a drape to cover the inside.

The people that lived here weren't just people, just like Linda said, there was a lot of Elves, dwarves, and occasional lizardmen that roamed the streets.

In the middle of the village was building that seemed fancier than the rest, but overall the same style. It was best to assume that it was the elder's house.

The carriage stopped in front of the elders house and the two dwarves got off the carriage with the lizard man and started to unload the carriage. The elf girl who was asleep slowly got up from her nap and took notice of me and my arm, her eyes went wide as she started to question what was going on. I gave her a small wave as I got off and looked around the to get a better view of the village.

People slowly started to take notice of me, and were whispering to each other as they started to surround me who was by the carriage.

I was sweating bullets from everyone's eyes on me. Before I could speak up one of them asked me, "Why is someone like _you_ here? Aren't you on trial for being a possible demon king spy?"

So they knew me from the trial, but they didn't hear about the Destroyer or Dullahan that me and my party faced...ok…

I spoke up confidently answering his question, "I'm just here to clear my mind from some problems, I'm not here to cause any problems…"

Another person spoke up from the crowd, "Well we don't want you here, problems or not, we don't take kindly to _your kind_ here…"

I got this sort of nostalgic but gloomy feeling of not being wanted by an entire group, oh boy here comes my memories of High School…

A low feminine voice came from behind me as it said the following, "We must learn to live together as one, or we will all perish together as one. Have you forgot my teachings, Thomas? What good are we as a community, if we turn away a child seeking comfort?" The voice that came from behind me was in the form of a woman that looks to be in her mid 50's, while in normal casual attire with 2 bodyguards with her.

"But Elder Charlotte-" The figure that spoke out before tried to speak again but was was soon hushed.

"Together, we have the power to inspire, connect, and deliver on new opportunities and rich experiences that can open doors that lead to a brighter future not just for us, but for the entire generation after us after we've come and gone…" She said in a calm tone with a gentle smile.

She walked up to me with both of her bodyguards next to her and gently grabbed my Demon Arm, examining it.

She did this for a couple of seconds before turning to the crowd, "Underneath each layer of skin, tissue, and nerve system, we are all the same. You may see him as Demon, but I see a young boy with arms not of violence, but of compassion. Just like all of you wonderful children when you stumbled upon this small village…" she said in a tone of not only majestic wisdom, but with the warm and caring attitude of a grandmother…

With that, the crowd started to leaving slowly and leave me, the Elder, the Dwarves, Lizardman, and elf by ourselves.

The Elder turned towards the dwarves and greeted them, "Thank you for getting our supplies. Dalin, Tosi, will you help Edra unload the cargo in the main hall? With weather like this, I'd feel bad if you went to each and every house just to catch a cold."

The two Dwarves and Lizardman, got on one knee towards the Elder and accepted the job.

The only one who wasn't out in the open was the Elf girl in the carriage.

"Meryl, are you still in the carriage? You'll catch a cold if you continue to take a nap there." The elder said as she knocked on the carriage wood to wake her up.

The red haired elf with glasses peeked outside before getting off and staying as far away from me as she can. She was just about the same height as Aqua, but looked about 17.

"Oh that's no way to treat someone, go on say Hi." The elder said as she tried to introduce the shy Elf.

"Hello there." She said in a quiet voice not making any eye contact whatsoever.

The elder soon made introductions for her, "This is my assistant and elder in training, Meryl. She's got quite the shy attitude when it comes to meeting new people despite being at least 1,400 years old." Meryl was now flustered in embarrassment from having the elder spill the beans, but wow...1,400 years old…you know your mentality is fucked when knowing that someone who is 1,400 years old doesn't affect you as much as it should...

"Elder why would you tell him that!?" Meryl said as she hiding her face from me with the clipboard.

The elder chuckled a bit before noticing the weather and time of day, "Come inside everyone, it's starting to get a lot colder now that the sun's about to set." The Elder said as she and her bodyguards started walking towards the Elder's house.

As we entered her house, what it looked like on the inside was completely unexpected compared to what it looked on the outside. It gave off a vibe of being inside mansion, but much more downscaled to fit a normal house while part of the hallway was a library. On the walls were small pictures and portraits of people, children, and landscapes. The books that were stored on the shelves were sort of thick, very dusty, and by the looks of the roman numerals on the top of the book spines, appears to be part of a series. I may not know a lot of roman numerals, but I think the highest number there was probably 19 (XIX)...

We continued to walk into a room that had way more books on the shelves, but had much more of a stuffy atmosphere. There was a large desk in the back of the room a small piles of papers, books, and a small flower pot that overlooked 3 windows that faced towards the village. Right next to the large desk was a smaller desk with in front of the shelves with multiple books in top of the desk. There was a medium sized oval shaped coffee table in between 2 soft couches that were facing each other. I guess it was safe to say that this was the elder's meeting room…

The elder went up to the 2 couches and sat on on of them where Meryl would sit right next to her, "come sit down, let's have a quick chat shall we?" The elder said as she motioned me to sit ahead of her.

Not having much of a choice, I sat down on the couch and we started our talk.

(Finally got this chapter out, but sadly it's just about the same length as a regular one. This would've been longer but school got in the way, thanks for those that were understanding. Don't worry, this story is on the back burner of back burners when I write it, I Usually write a chapter on friday nights since fridays are the only days that I don't have any classes, including weekends.

Also, the 2nd reason why this chapter is not as long is mainly because I'm sort of working on another story that's also a combination of a videogame and anime. The only difference is that it's sort of a meme, and the base story is someone else's idea, but after 2-3 months he hasn't updated anything from it so I'm just gonna try and take the mantle when I finish watching the anime.

The only clue I'll give you guys is that the game has a Cafe in the Motherland with the anime based off a Cafe…If someone somehow guesses it, I'll make them a shitty drawing of a sp00ky boi...

BTW, why the fuck did all 5 of you guys, the day of posting chapter 29, post a review at midnight!? Let ya boi sleep in peace, I had 5 different notifications each of them 5 minutes one after another…

A review posted by DxHologram on Oct 21: Thanks for leaving a review, originally I Was going to make Tsukiyo take up the job opportunity from Kosuke, but decided to go with another route of starting over fresh in a village with little to no discrimination, save for demons. He will get a chance to work by himself and get stronger to a point, but other than that, I got a good idea on how to lay things out. Thanks for the encouraging-ish words, I know midterms might've passed for some people, but luckily for me because I take 75% art classes, I get no midterms…

Review posted by Guest account Saru on Oct 21: If I remember right, back in chapter 15(?) I did type out that Kosuke has been living in the world for about 6 years, and since its about to be the end of the year, soon 7 years. The reason why he acts like Dante, is because he's the first person in the fantasy world to BE Dante, I mean, who wouldn't want to be that badass of man! I can't really say much after that since I'm not sure if it'll be a spoiler, but I can say that, aside from Tsukiyo and Kazuma's group, there are other people that know him. Also, Vergil will not appear for a couple of chapters because of the amount of shit he went through, he's pissed and tired…

Opinion posted on Oct 21 by Nexus Gem: Thanks for your opinion on the fanfic, but this Fic isn't a perfect 5 star story. It's more of a 3 or 3.5 star story.

Review posted by YukiMegi on Oct 21: Thanks for the review, but no thanks for the 3 paragraph essay on it, like seriously why is everyone forcing me to read so much!? Aside from that, yeah, Vergil wasn't gonna pretend to be courteous and act like a good person anymore, and because Tsukiyo was wanting to take more time for a solution that could've been resolved in a day, he was forced to go to the extreme and drag him out by force. Also, hoold on my boi, are you really jealous of Darkness' joy from getting beat down? I mean I'm not gonna kink shame, but you do you…

The insanity I have is not a good one, and by that I mean I literally say the worst things while joking about it if given the opportunity to do so, like, my sense of humor is beyond fucked up.

As a Mute main, I can only feel pain and hatred to those types of bandit user...Also waste weekends? I do that 90% of the time…

Btw, I Really suck at math, so I'm just gonna stick to drawing and creating shitty memes on the internet...

Review posted by Gen2324 on Oct 21: Thanks for the review, and yeah, that's just Vergil being a True Vergil. Not hesitating to get things done or caring for anyone if they get in his way, even if it means nearly killing someone. Not only is Tsukiyo having problems from back in the prison, but he still has to deal with the party abandoning him with almost all of the adventurers too, as you seen from today's chapter. Don't worry, real life always comes first, it's not like I Don't have a life...oh wait...

Review posted by Silver566 literally this morning (Nov 3): Nah, I'm good. No one is worthy enough to be with Wiz...


	31. Village of Hybrids (Off Grid P2)

I told the Elder mostly everything on what happened to me and why I left my party to go on my own for awhile as she nodded her head in understanding, everything from the destroyer aftermath, to Vergil, and to the marriage interview.

"I see…" she said as she pondered thought in her head, "So that's what they weren't telling us…" She muttered to herself while having a look of disapproval.

I looked at her with a curious face, she cleared her face and extended her hand towards me, "Welcome to the Village, even if it's for a short time, you're welcome to stay!" She said in a happy manner.

Meryl, the red haired elf who was right next to her, looked at her in shock, "Elder, you can't be serious! He's a demon, what would you do if they found out we're harboring one here!?" She exclaimed.

"Oh Hush, Meryl. If they find out, then I'll make sure to deal with it. You don't have to worry…" She said while trying to reassure the elf, but failed to do so as she stormed out of the room.

The Elder looked a bit disappointed, but nonetheless shrugged it off and turned back towards me, "I apologise for that. Meryl's a kind hearted soul, she's just worried about the town if the capital comes and finds someone like you here." She said giving an apologetic look.

I asked the Elder, "What does the capital have to do with this town? Don't you guys usually keep to yourselves?" If they do, then there really shouldn't be any reason to come and bother people here…

The Elder sighed and laid back into the couch as she explained the "situation" they were in, "Yes, we do like to keep to ourselves most of the time but because we're such a diverse community there have been plenty of cases where unwanted guests come in and try to ruin the community we've built for most of my lifetime." She soon got up and went towards the shelves that had the book roman numerals and pulled out the book at the very beginning of the collection.

She opened the book and pulled out a picture of a younger looking version of herself, an old man who looked about 60, Meryl who looked 2-3 years younger with shorter hair, and a bunch of children with adults around them. The only weird part of all this was that the children and adults were a mix of Dwarves, Elves, and humans happily smiling together.

"You see these children right here? These children were one of the first to live in a place where they could enjoy true peace without any judgement…" She said in a happy tone as she reminisce from her past, "Ever since I was 30, I've seen those children grow up and become magnificent adults, and so did my father until he died at 65. When my Father originally created this community, he and my Mother wanted to create a community where no one would be ridiculed for being a specific race, we were all living beings, so why not live in a place where no one could be harmed or hated on the simple concept of appearance?" She put the photo back in the book and ced it back in the shelf.

"That photo was from 500 years ago. I've seen a lot of precious children come and go, and the only thing they regret is not living longer in this safe haven of a community." She said as she sat back down on the couch.

"You're 500 years old? Are you also an Elf?" I asked out of curiosity.

She giggled to herself and answered my question, "Oh no, only a half elf. My Father was human while my mother was an Elf, and because my mother was in love and mated with a human, she was banished from her homeland and shunned. This was the main reason for my Father creating a safe haven. But because I'm only a half elf, I don't get as much life as them." She said that last sentence in a sad tone as she headed towards her desk and looked out the window watching the peaceful village as it slowly turns to night time.

She said in a voice loud enough for only me to hear while she looked outside, "They say most half elves who live on the outside usually last 550 years before they die by natural causes...I only have 20 years left, but still have so much to teach Meryl…" She said in a somber tone.

I was starting to feel sad for the Elder. It felt as if it was a mother abandoning a teen at 19 not being able to give as much advice on how to live life.

The elder stopped being somber and turned towards me with a serious gaze, "When I was about 200 years old, the capital discovered this place and told us to disband this place for "encouragement an unhealthy lifestyle", But because we all refused to do so for many many years, the capital eventually left us to our own for a while until they started sending out teams to destroy and pillage this place. At first it was usually almost every week, but because of our bonds and stubbornness, the attacks slowly died down from 4-5 times a month, to 3 times, to once."

She said as she remembered those days from her past "Those were times for when the village was at it prime, but because almost everyone here in this village has a young one to care for, they can't afford to get into a fight and come home to their children bruised and battered. Recently, they've been coming here twice a week for payments of security since that's all we could do at this point, but right now we're on the verge of going completely broke. And because of the season, there won't be any good quests safe enough for my people to attend and bring home for their kids." The elder said as she began to sigh as she sat on her desk and began to review some documents, "You should go onto mess hall in the southern part of the village, it's inside a church, go and introduce yourself and help out. I'd love to talk more with you, but sadly these documents won't approve themselves."

She called out to Meryl who wasn't in the room, "Meryl, I know you're eavesdropping on us, I already know you and your tricks. Can you help guide Tsukiyo to the mess hall? Dinner for the village is about to start, and I'd like him to introduce himself, ok?" There was a brief silence before the door opened and a small voice came out, "Fine…" The door fully opened, Meryl peeked her head inside and motioned me to come with her.

I went with exited the room as the Elder was reviewing the documents and was pulled to the side by Meryl's grip, she looked at me with a glare, "Look here, just because the Elder accepts you, doesn't mean that the rest of us will. Don't get too comfortable!" She said as she tried to threaten me, but failed in the process from not looking at me and speaking in a low voice.

It was sorta cute, I couldn't help but laugh when she tried so hard to act tough. "Hey, what's so funny!" She said angrily as she got into my face, I just shrugged it off and told her it was nothing.

She stuck her tongue out at me when I shrugged it off and just stomped away from me, while I followed her.

While I was following her to the mess hall, the more I looked around town, the more I was starting to feel a bit comfortable with the place. It wasn't flashy, grandiose, or busy, but mainly pleasant and humble for anyone walking through.

Meryl spoke up after seeing me look around for a minute or two, "What? Disappointed that the town isn't as good as the others?" She's always gonna be hostile towards me, isn't she?

"No, not at all. It's just very subtle and sort of minimalistic, I actually like it." I said as we continued walking.

I was starting to feel a bit better about leaving my party and coming here to sort things out, the only thing though in the back of my mind was Darkness and how she wanted to come with me. I know pistol whipping probably wasn't the best way to deal with her, but with a strong personlity like hers, I doubt any kind of reasoning would make her budge with her decision. I'll make sure to properly apologise to her if I go back, but that's only IF I go back…

It took only about 20 minutes or so to get to the Mess hall, where it just looked like a bigger version of some kind of medieval church and I'd be able to meet with some people and introduce myself, but that would have to wait since there was a scene going on from the amount of noise coming from the Mess hall, noises of crying children, things getting broken, and angry shouts.

Me and Meryl hurried over to the mess hall where a group of 3 armor clad guys were cornering a small group of female elves protecting their children. The men that were in the mess hall were on the ground battered, bruised, and beaten unconscious.

Meryl whispered in a shaking voice as she stared at the 3 armoured men, "W-why are they here so early!? We don't have enough payment for the week…" She was terrified, and on the other hand I was pissed…

I pulled Meryl to the side where we wouldn't be seen and placed both hands on her shoulders, "Go get the Elder, I'll buy some time to make sure no one gets hurts." I told her quietly, but because she was still shaken up she didn't hear me, I placed my hands on her face and made her face me, "Listen to me, calm down, take deep breaths and sprint as fast as you can back to the office. Trust me, no one will get hurt…" She did what I said and took some deep breaths and started to run back to the office.

I turned back to the doorway only to hear a shriek from both an elf and a child, "NO! Please don't hurt him! I beg of you! Korin!" The Mother yelled in fear, but was soon silenced as the other guard punched her in the face, drag her to the ground, and kick her towards the other women, her kid screamed in fear as he saw his mother get beaten, but had now become a hostage.

Severely pissed off at this guy, I started to sprint right at him, "Hey Asshole!" I yelled out as I ran towards the guy who punched the elf and give him a heavy Dropkick pushing him towards the other 2 guards letting go of the kid.

"What the hell is this?" One of the guys said as he got up and looked at the person who drop kicked him. I Made sure to hide my demon arm behind my back and have it be hidden with help from my cloak.

"Oi! Ye Fookin' muppet! Ya wanna come at me!? Fookin' do it then!" One of the guards shouted as he ran towards me and started to swing rapidly. I only managed to dodge a couple of his swings that were directed at my face, but wasn't able to fully dodge the swings towards my body.

The swings didn't hurt as much as the guards from back in the prison but they still hurt nonetheless. Before I even knew it, the other 2 guards started to surround me and swing at me too.

At this point, I was only barely able to dodge any incoming fists and kicks coming my way, and I was already starting to get bruised and battered. Meryl should be here soon, I think I've stalled enough ti-

I couldn't finish my thought process since I was bashed in the head by something heavy and flat. I was now on the ground in pain and saw that one of the guards use their shield to bash my head, and I was now getting kicked at all sides….oh boy so familiar…

At this point my anger was starting to swell up and I was just about to do blow over and fuck them up, but I soon heard a low growl/hiss noise coming from the doorway where I came from.

The guards were distracted and looked over with me, and what we saw was a swol lizard boi giving the guards a death glare, but the thing is that he wasn't alone, there were multiple swol boi's behind him as they all pooled in and started to surround the guards.

Using this opportunity I tried to get up and fight back, but was used as a hostage instead when one of the guards drew his longsword and point it at my neck while standing on top of my back preventing me from getting up, "Any closer and the boy gets it ya hear?"

I didn't have a choice to make at this point...waiting for some kind of miracle to appear and save me was foolish to believe in, and because I was part demon probably means that I won't be coming near heaven or saved by some kind of angel…

….Fuck it...I'm already a demon, If they're gonna drag into hell, then I'll just go deeper…!

My demon arm wasn't known to them since it's been hiding in my thick cloak along with my Revolver…I grabbed the wooden ergonomic grip and slowly pulled it out…

...I just need one moment to catch them off guard…

 _Go ahead, kill them. People like them aren't considered humans. Scum, they're just Scum..._

\- - - - -

My grip in the pistol tightened as breathed in a couple of times while my heartbeat beat faster and faster in each moment. All 3 guards had their helmets on, but there was 2 small rectangle holes that showed their eyes. That's the only shot I have at them…

My heart was now beating very fast and I could barely hear myself think from the heartbeat beating in my ears.

The weight on my back was a bit lighter than before, and the sword wasn't aimed at my neck but more towards my left ear. Now was my only chance!

I gathered what was left in my rage and was about to lay waste to these 3 assholes until…

"Why are you three here, you know we have another 3 days to pay you…" The elder said as she was let through from the lizard men walking towards the guards, Meryl was behind her shakily peeking out and glancing at both me and the Elven women and children.

"Can it lady, you're giving us less and less each week, did you expect us to keep quiet and accept the chump change you give us!?" One of the guards shouted as her stern face held its form, She grabbed a money pouch that was hidden in her sleeve and tossed it over to the other guard.

The other guard caught it, opened it and counted the coins, he turned over towards his companion, "It's all there and then some, let's go."

As soon as he said that, the other guard that shouted at the elder and the guard that was standing on top of me headed towards the exit not looking back, he turned towards the elder and whispered something before fully leaving.

My grip on the revolver loosened as I soon got up from the ground and held my ribs in pain, I'm no doctor but I think one or two of them might be broken…

I heard a couple of gasps from the women as they saw me hold my ribs from the guards with my demon arm...oh right, forgot…

The elder ran up to me and helped me up from getting off the ground, "Are you okay?" She asked out of concern, "Yeah, I'm fine. I've been through a lot worse…" I said while breathing slightly heavily from pain. Normally Aqua would've healed me and ask for 1 billion dollar wine, but because she isn't here, I'm prettys sure I'm gonna have to heal the normal way...Which seems so weird to me for some reason…

Out of sheer luck it seems that some of the men that got beaten unconscious were starting to wake up and hold their bruises and pain. Most of the Elven women walked up to their respective man and hugged them out of fear and joy now that the scary situation was gone, all but one Elven woman with her kid was still in the same spot.

The woman that was punched and had her child held hostage walked up to me and took a look at my arm carefully examining it, she was about to speak until I cut her off, "Don't worry, you don't have to…"

She didn't listen though and still told me anyways while getting down on her knees and holding my demon arm in both her hands, "Thank you, with all my heart I say thank you. You don't know how much my son means to me…" She said while trying to hold back her tears. The kid on the other hand hugged my left bicep tightly, but didn't say anything.

I replied once again, "Again like I said, you don't have to thank me for that…" The elder placed her hand in my shoulder and looked at me with a warm smile. She didn't need to say anything and I already know what she thinking...

I sighed in defeat and gave her an actual response, "It's no problem, I did this from the goodness of my heart, whether it be demonic or not. The guy was an assh-er…Jerk...for punching a woman in the face, didn't sit well with my morals." Except if it's to a Useless Goddess and Masochistic Crusader who can't do jack shit…

The woman looked up at me and gave me a small smile while thanking me one more time before leaving with her child. The other Elven women and children with their husband looked at me with a concerned gaze and started to file out of the mess hall with some lizard men.

One of the lizard men, who sort of looked like the same one who traveled here with me and Meryl on the Carriage ride here, started to walk towards me holding a small bottle with light blue liquid inside.

Meryl, who was now not behind the elder and not shaken up anymore, noticed this and talked (?) to the lizard man and received the bottle, looked at me, and soon left.

Meryl walked up to me and handed me the bottle while looking away, "Edra told me to give this to you, saying that you are a man of honour jumping into a situation without a second to think about it. Bold, but very stupid...C'mon, drink it." I took the bottle from her hands and drank it.

The color looked pretty, but it sure did taste like hot garbage. In a short amount of time my ribs were starting to feel better.

In a matter of a 5-7 minutes my ribs were now back in place and slightly healed, but the pain still lingered.

The elder sighed in exhaustion as she surveyed the messed up mess hall, flipped table and chairs almost everywhere, "When will this cycle of constant hatred and oppression end…" She asked herself.

She turned towards me, and told Meryl to give me directions to a motel that was about 10 minutes from here. All this trouble was enough for one day and it was just about time for most people to sleep.

I got up from sitting down and started to walk towards the motel with Meryl guiding me, I took one last look of the mess hall where the elder was looking at sadly and headed out.

As we walked towards the motel and stayed silent for most of the trip, the silence was broken for a short while when Meryl asked me a question, "You said that you've been through worse, when it came to a fight. Is that really true?" She said in a low voice.

"Yeah it is," I replied back, "I've been through a lot of really bad situations and somehow lived through them with the help of my teammates, it's pretty crazy…" I nearly died so many times, got pushed under the bus that lead me to prison, and almost got mauled by a tiger/sabertooth.

My life is really, really, strange...but compared to a normal life where I'd be living leisurely in a A/C or heated house where the only people I could talk to were my family and coworkers, this is something I'd probably want more than the other. I just wish that I could get some closure from my family members and let them know that I'm still alive…

We were silent for the rest of the trip, until we finally reached the motel that was pretty long but only had one floor. Meryl said her goodbyes to me and so did I as I entered the motel.

Surprisingly, I was greeted by the same Elven women that I sort of saved with her son, she seemed to be just as surprised as I was since she asked me what I was doing here. I told her that I needed a place to stay since I was new here and before I could say anything else, she tossed me a key and told me to head to room number 13. She said that I didn't have to pay since I saved her and her kid.

She didn't really have to do this, but because she was being very stubborn about it, I guess I didn't really have much of a choice.

As I got to my room and looked inside, I didn't look very different to the one I stayed in back in Axel. Sort of small room, small boxy bathroom with claustrophobic toilet and sink, kitchen counter with wooden knives, forks, and spoons, and to top it all off, medium sized bed with in the corner of the room with a window right across the kitchen with a cloth draped over.

I unlatched the Red Queen on my back and set it aside from my bed, and took off the Blue Rose and…

My thought process stopped for an entire minute before it finally realized an important detail...I almost tried to kill 3 people today…

My stomach was starting to churn in pain as I was recalling what happened, it was so intense that I had to go into the bathroom and puke. After what seems to be about 10 minutes, with both my lungs, throat, and stomach burning, I washed off my face and sat down on my bed…

I really need to sort out my shit before someone actually dies…

I was slight trembling from the thought of actually doing it, it's horrifying knowing what anger can do to someone when their cornered with weapons almost no one else has...I got to promise myself not to kill out if anger, but only and ONLY if necessary, taking a human life is bad enough, taking out multiple lives in a short time is even worse.

I decided to lay in bed and not think about it anymore. Holding onto my necklace for comfort, I breathed in and out a couple of times to calm myself down before closing my eyes hoping that tomorrow doesn't get as worse as it was today…

(Man, I sort of get dark when I write from creativity, not sure If It's a good thing or not, but it's there…

Don't have much to say, just sort of normal chapter update. Also, if you have a family or know someone that is putting up a christmas tree right now, please do me a favor and tell them to TEAR THAT SHIT DOWN RIGHT NOW AND WAIT UNTIL IT'S DECEMBER!

 **Btw, it's snowing where I live, pls send help and a flamethrower…**

Review from DxHologram on Nov. 3: Thanks for the feedback, and after thinking about it, it does seem like a dick move to pistol whip Darkness even though I did write her in to be more considerate for Tsukiyo, but this'll be perfect for later...Punching aqua though? Meh, pretty stale since she gets hit by Kazuma plenty of times, she still won't learn from it though.

Review from Gen2324 on Nov. 3: Thanks for the review, and to be honest I've forgotten about that scene from RvB since it's been a while, and now that I've been reminded of it, that could've been perfect for the scenario for Tsukiyo's leaving, but his rant at chapter 23 (I think) is sort of close enough to that. If Tsukiyo did try to beat the shit out of the adventurers in the tavern, he would've gotten his shit kick in from being outnumbered from adventurers both new and old so….The Line "Go eat shit and die" though is a pretty funny one though, gotta use it in a chapter sometime…

Review from YukiMegi on Nov. 4: Thanks for leaving a review, and yeah, I'm just gonna let you be you and not expand more questionable things...For your comment on Darkness, just like I Told DxHologram, I did think about it and felt like It was bit much, but it'll be sort of perfect for later.

Review from Guest account, Saru, on Nov. 3: Thanks for your feedback, and damn my dude I could get punching Aqua since she's annoying as all hell, but throwing Kazuma out a window? Damn, you want some anger thrown at Tsukiyo for an interesting development huh? Ok...I got you, might not be right away, but you'll gets something…

Review from Guest Account, Oran (HighSchoolHostClub), on Nov. 3: Thanks for leaving some feedback, and I Do agree with you on that point, they should've made Kazuma just as mad as Tsukiyo when he got thrown under the bus from the Destroyer, probably make half a chapter just having Kazuma go around town pissed off from his luck after the trial, but because of the Darkness and Vanir situation he didn't have much time to be pissed off but rather be at peak forgiveness from losing a 40 mil debt.


	32. Early Morning Training (Off Grid P3)

Morning time didn't come as quickly as I want it to be, because of the horrible burning sensation that was in my stomach, and still lingers right now, I couldn't sleep as well as I wanted to.

As I got up from the bed and looked outside the window that was only covered by a thick rag, it wasn't even morning yet. The sky still gave off a mixed shade of purple and blue, but still gave out some sunlight that was probably around the horizon somewhere. If I were to guess, it'd probably be around 6:30-7:00-ish

If I was working back in Japan, this would be nothing. Just take a small dosage if liquid cocaine (Coffee) and I'd be up for about 3 hours until I needed another dose. But because I'm stuck in a shitty fantasy world that probably hasn't invented it in the form of coffee beans, means that I have to so everything from sheer willpower.

I tried to going back to sleep hoping that I could wake up later and get more rest, but it looks my body is being a piece of shit not letting me be rest more so I guess I have to stay awake for the rest of the day.

I should probably check my skill card and see If I can actually upgrade stuff since I've been saving for a while.

I pulled out my skill card that was stuffed into my back pocket and dusted off a bit of lint from having it stay in my pocket for a long time.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Red Queen:**

Damage multiplier - x1.2 (Max. x5.0) Upgrade: 1 point per x0.1

Exceed Bonus - x1.8 (Max 2.0) Increased Every 5 levels by 0.1

Range - 4 inches (Max 1.5 Feet) Upgrade: 1 inch per point

Swing speed - 107% (Max 150%) Upgrade: 1% per 1 point

Knockback - x1.2 (Max x2.0) Increases as Red Queen receives upgrades

Demonic Cleanser: When held with the Devil Bringer, impact is increased by x1.5 and damage is increased by x1.5 in exchange for swing speed ( -25%)

Berial's Flames from the Fire Hell: When Red Queen is Exceeded beyond level 1, flames get more deadlier at the cost of 20% chance of inflicting self fire damage on level 2, and 40% when on level 3

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

 **Devil Bringer**

(Buster) Strength - 145% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5%

Lift Strength - 92 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 7 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet

Treasure Detection - Devil arm will glow brightly when near treasures or secret items within 10ft, can only be used when concentrating solely on the arm.

Shield of Credo - The Devil Bringer is now able to hold an enemy and use it as a shield, 40% chance of it working. Enemy can only be lifted if it's within the Lift Strength.

Bael's Cold Grip - When an enemy is being held on as a shield, it will not be able fight back for 5 minutes. Enemies attacking the shield has 25% chance of getting frost damage, and if the shielded enemy is slammed, it will shatter from 100% frost damage.

Unyielding strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Demon Drain: Drain any demonic or evil essence from an enemy and use it against them via a punch or Blue Rose Shot. Strength increases depending on how strong an enemy is, x1.0-x2.5 Fixed dmg.

Power of Sparda: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% vitality

25% strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

\-- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Blue Rose**

Normal Shot: Shoot 6 bullets in the form of 3 shots, (2 Bullets per shot) Will take 5 seconds to reload, costs 12 mana per reload.

(10 dmg per shot)

Charged shot: Drain the demonic Essence from enemies and use it against them. Shoots all 6 bullets in 1 Shot, Takes 36 Mp per shot, 10 seconds to reload.

 _New*_ Pistol Whip: Use the grip of your Pistol to melee an enemy, will have fixed .5x Crit. chance if pulled off successfully. Uses .75x of Strength attribute.

Accuracy: 35% (Max: 100%) Increases 5% per point

\-- -- -- -- -- --

 **Abilities**

Sprint Speed - 128% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 63)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

 _Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness._

 _Trigger heart - MP reduction has increased from 5 secs per 6 MP to 10 sec per 6 MP. Next upgrade is 15 secs per MP at Lvl. 40.*_

Uses 6 MP every 10 sec. 60 MP per Min.

Current MP: 30,000/30,000

\-- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Swordsman**

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x1.2 (Max 2.0) Upgrade is x0.1 per point

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 50% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 30

MP Usage reduction with swords - 5% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 10% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 25% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

\-- -- -- -- -- --

 **General**

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Current Level : 28

Strength : 63-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Status--In pain

Vitality : 2100/2100 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 30,000

Stamina : 45

Defense : 66

Agility : 50

Luck : 42

Faith : -10

Dexterity : 41

Will : 70

Intelligence : 60

I looked so wide eyed at my MP you could mistake me for a goddam drug addict, holy shit!

Why is it at 30,000!? There is literally no use for a 30K MP pool. If it were up to me, I'd say that a 3,500 would be enough because of my skills and ability, but going over 10K up to 30K is just fucking unnecessary.

What sucks even more is the fact that I don't even have any skills points to use! I'm stuck with basic-ish skills….

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _Because of you being knocked out for so long is the main reason why I had to spend all of your skill points on mana._

Ok, but you could've at least put some points into some of my skills so I could have had some chance when I woke up!

 _Yeah...2 weeks later…_

Goddamnit! Well this sucks, worst case scenario when in a fight I could always shoot the monster to death…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I went back to my bed and sat back at for a while contemplating what to do next; I couldn't really go do a quest since It might be too early for one and I can't sleep since my body isn't letting me, soI guess the only logical thing to do would probably train myself and get myself warmed up for incoming quests later on.

I put my boots on, placed the Red Queen back in my back, holstered the Blue Rose, and put my thick cloak on heading out of the Motel that I was in quietly to not disturb any other residents that were sleeping right now.

As I left the Motel and headed outside, one thing hit me very hard as I flew onto the ground and I knew the pain of it all too well, the Cold.

Because it sort of snowed a bit more last night, it seems that there was already a foot in a half worth of snow on the ground. Not even one goddamn feet of stepping outside, and I already busted my ass from the ice that was hidden.

I tried to get up from the ice but only flailed for about 5 minutes before I was able to get onto my knees and slowly get up. If I had only killed 1000 more of those snow spirits from back then….

"Oh my, you're already awake at this time?" A voice called out quietly as she was walking towards me, it was the woman who was punched last night from the guard and had her kid held hostage. She was wearing a fur coat and pants with a very communist looking hat that I approved of...

"Uh, yeah sort of...Sorry, I couldn't sleep...as well as I would've liked, so I woke up early...Couldn't go back to sleep, so I'm...just going to train for a while somewhere away from here so...I don't wake up anyone else..." I said as I tried not slipping and busting my ass again from the ice…

She seemed to have been giggling from my attempt of not slipping as she was watching me suffer, "You know we have some snow clogs inside if you would to use some. It times like these that I'm glad that I made a couple of extra pairs for strangers like you." She said happily as she tried to lend a hand to me.

"Sure, I'd like to-" I tried to grab her hand as she extended it out towards me, but because of my 0.0001 second of being caught off guard, the ice fucked me over and me bust my ass again, making me hit the snow face first. "...I'd love one of those right now…" I said as my anger for the snow grew higher and higher…

She helped me up from the snow and helped me get inside so I wouldn't bust my ass again as she handed me a pair of boots with a lot of small spikes on the bottom while being covered in both fur and metal. It was basically an extreme but fancy version of some cleats.

As I was putting on my cleats, I asked her "Tell me, why are you being so nice to someone who is the most hated race in this world? I get that you'd probably have some good opinion of me since I saved your kid and all, but you don't have to be this nice…"

She sat down in from of me and gave me a smile as she replied, "I'm being nice because I want to be nice. I know it may be a very simple reason, but that's my only reason. You saving my son from those men is just an extra." She took off her Komrad (Communist) hat and revealed her dark brown hair that was in a ponytail tied up with a small pink ribbon.

"I guess that's a reason I can understand." I said as I stood up from putting in both of the snow cleats, I soon headed for the door until she spoke up, "U-um...If you're gonna train, you should head towards the western edge of the village. There's a path that leads into the forest."

I turned towards her as she gave a shy glance, "Thanks, uh..." I said as I tried to remember if she said her name or not, She soon spoke up and told me her name, "Karin! My name's Karin" I thanked her once again, "Thanks Karin" I soon turned towards the door and left the Motel.

I stepped outside again and managed to walk out a couple of feet without slipping with -100% effort, Fucking suck it Ice!

I made my way towards the western part of the village which was just a 10 minute walk and just Like Karin told me, there was a small path in the forest that lead deeper. As I walked on the path and looked around, I began to admire the scenery as I walked on.

The tree's, although had been covered in snow, looked very elegant as most of the branches has been drooping down while giving small glimpses of leaves while ice was formed under it glinting and shining from the small amount of sunlight that was shown through the tree line. The bush that were surrounding the tree were also covered in snow, but only 75% covered while the very bottom showed actual leaves and shrubbery.

I continued to walk for another 8-12 minutes before I reached the end of the trail where a couple of stumps and tree logs showed themselves. It looked like people were preparing for the cold here and stopped when it started to snow.

I walked over towards a spot where it was bit open and started to train on a single tree that was singled out from the other, probably because it was a lot thicker than your average tree, but it didn't matter since it'd be used as dummy for now.

I unsheathed the Red Queen and started to familiarize myself with it with some simple horizontal, vertical, and diagonal swings.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _No, no, no. You're not swinging it right. You're putting too much weight into your swings that leave you vulnerable for counterattacks. Don't make yourself an easy target if you're gonna swing it at an enemy or animal._

 _When connecting a diagonal and horizontal slash, you gotta keep moving and be relentless to your foes. They will be much faster and have less opening to themselves, so you have to move as you attack and keep a good distance since your sword is longer and heavier. Use your buster arm for close quarters and your Pistol for range, hell use a combination of 2 things at a time..._

 _Just be Efficient, it's painful to watch you fight._

Thanks for those oh so, inspiring words...

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I continued to swing my sword a bit faster while concentrating a bit more into where I place my slashes.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _Move your feet in a consistent rhythm! You never know If the enemy is going to counter, so it's best to keep yourself active just in case._

 _Another thing, your wrist movement is sloppy. Let go of half the tension and let your sword do the moving, only have it Tensioned the moment before your sword makes contact, if your grip is always at max you'll tire yourself out quicker._

 _Also, use your entire Demon Arm as a shield in dire situations. While it may still be your arm, it's not your ordinary arm, the tissue and skin that surround it is pure demon cells, it'll block a sword if the slash isn't calculated and block majority of animal fangs or claws._

So much backseat comments….

 _This isn't backseat commenting, it called coaching. You get yourself damn near killed almost all the time, so I have to teach you the very basics of swordsmanship from a professional. Your ragtag method of legging it and hoping for the best has it limits, so I'll coach you until your at least half as good as myself._

 _Now, from the top! Horizontal, Diagonal, Vertical, Repeat. Go until I'm satisfied!_

Seriously?

 _No backtalk!_

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

It was at this time that my demon arm moved on its own and punched me hard in the back of my head.

Ow! That Fucking hurt!

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _I'll train you this entire damn day with no food, water, or piss breaks if I have to! Get Moving!_

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I held my Sword out and started swing at it the say way Vergil Told me to swing. I tried moving my feet as well but slowly stopped as I was starting to feel awkward about it. I was once again punched in the back of the head for stopping.

This cycle continued for 45 minutes before I was starting to get really tired.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _Faster! The enemy won't care if your fatigued from something as little as this, either you pick up the pace or you start on a consistent 10 lap jog around the village!_

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I started to swing faster but was losing the tension on my grip that was holding the Red Queen. I soon dropped it and fell on my knees from exhaustion.

It was at this time that I heard a weird click on my right ear, and when I looked over I saw my Demon Arm pointing the Blue Rose at me with the hammer ready to sound off.

More of my trauma started to reappear as my heart rate increased and I was soon facing the ground throwing up. It wasn't as much as back in the destroyer and not as much to ruin my cloak, but definitely enough to make my stomach burn again.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _That's another thing, you gotta leave behind those emotions that hold you back when you fight. They'll only get in your way when making a decision. Trust me, it'll do you more good than you expect._

 _5 minute break..._

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

He made my demon arm lower the Revolver as he said that and gave me control over it again. I laid back on the tree that was used as a dummy and looked at the treeline across from me as the sun still shone through it.

I pulled out my necklace given to me by my mom and held it tightly. It's been at least a couple of months since I died, and I still have trouble with remembering and trying to accept it…

Man, I really need to let that go, it really makes me feel pathetic…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _It doesn't make you Pathetic, it only shows your human side. There's a fine line between realistic and an edgy brat, and you've always been an edgy brat since the beginning. So try and fix that for yourself so you can be some kind of decent human. If not, then you can be like me, cast that side away and fully embrace being a demon instead of a wannabe._

Wannabe? Aren't I a demon already because of the Demon Arm?

 _Hell No! You're not even a half demon as a matter of fact! All you've been doing is just borrowing my energy from the beginning, doing the buster slams are all you, but the Devil Trigger and Arm itself are my own!_

Wow...that uh...opens my eyes a bit…

 _And yet you're still oh so blind to the very world around you, including your teammates (mumbled)_

What was that?

 _Five minutes are up, pick up your gear and start jogging!_

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

My Demon Arm was now back in Vergil's control as he grabbed my hair, picked me up, and forced me to start running. I grabbed my Sword, placed it on my back, and started to jog back to the trail that I came from.

It definitely didn't help that the cleats were part metal so that made jogging harder than it needed it to be.

Even though the Village wasn't as big as Axel, it was still a pretty sizable place… Each lap around the village was about 30 minutes each, and to do all ten laps that took about 5 hours to do all together…

Although I was sort of used to jogging in a regular basis because of school, I never planned on running a damn marathon! I was already half dead on the third lap, the tenth lap just made me face plant as my legs were stuck in running mode continuously moving/running without me doing anything. Nothing like the motivating phrase of 'If you pass out, you're doing 10 more laps' to get you to not give up at all costs.

As I slowly got up and took my face out of the snow, I looked around and noticed that the purple/blue sky turned into a steel blue as the clouds gathered and started to make it a lot colder than before.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _Okay, we're done for today_...

Holy Shit finally!

 _We'll pick up your training tomorrow with Pain Resilience…_

Son of a Bitch!

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

At this time, people probably had already woken up and start their day doing the things they probably do on a daily basis living their life pretty happily with their friends, family, and other villagers, and then there's me, waking up at the crack of dawn at winter time while having my body trained to death, to the point of nearly ripping my legs off...

As I started to slowly get myself up, I was soon confronted by a pair of footsteps heading towards me from behind.

"Oh my…" "What are you doing?" Two feminine voices were heard.

I propped myself up and turned towards the voice that were behind me and saw the Village elder and Meryl look at me, one was in concern while the other couldn't really care less. You can probably guess which is which…

"Oh, Hey there...Don't mind me...just taking a morning stroll...Nothing like...a quick session to make your blood flow...huh?" I said as I was panting pretty heavily.

The elder came over to me to try and help me up, all Meryl was doing was looking at me with with a pretty nice poker face looking at someone with eyes of pity…

I was finally able to stand up without having my legs burn from pain with the help of the elder, "We should get you to the mess hall to finally give yourself an introduction to some of the other villagers here…" My stomach was starting to rumble with noise that could rival an earthquake, "...and maybe some food too, how long were you out here?" The elder asked out of concern.

"Ummm...ever since dawn I think…" I answered sheepishly, "I tried to go back to sleep when I woke up but wasn't able to and because I didn't feel like waiting in my room for a couple of hours, I thought that training myself for the moment could pass the time…"

"Why would you need to train yourself? Since the cold season is about to begin, We only let the cold resistant lizardmen go out and hunt, everything else is mainly for preparation for this season." The elder explained as she let go of my arm having me walk on my own.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _Perfect, more training for you. I guess I can go almost all out if you won't be doing any quests after…_

God fucking Dammit!

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

I was now dreading the mornings for Vergil's daily training session…

Meryl looked at me with suspicious eyes, "What's wrong?" She asked me, I guess I was an open book when I let out my dread, "Nothing...I'm just gonna head to the mess hall and get something to eat the feeling of pain away…"

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _That reminds me, we're gonna limit your diet, your only going to eat half as much meat during lunch, 2x as much greens, and nothing at all for breakfast. Today will be your only exception._

 **Why must you hurt me so much…**

I slowly made my way towards the mess hall while dragging my feet that had no feeling to them at all. It took a solid 20 minutes to get there all while enduring starvation, the very familiar sensation of sleep deprivation, and fatigue

By the time I made it to the mess hall, I could've sworn that the moment sat down that I dozed off for a minute, but I can't tell what time it is since the outside is just cloudy.

As I looked around towards all the people who in the mess hall, I felt a good amount of stares coming from all directions. I wasn't sure if they were stares of disgust, curiosity, or whatever but I definitely noticed them but couldn't care less as long as none of them wanted to fight me or cause any problems.

My eyelids were starting to feel very heavy while my head was slowly drooping down. Aw shit, if I sleep now I'm gonna miss my only opportunity of having a normal lunch that makes me enjoy food.

I fought aggressively to keep my eyelids open, constantly flickering open and closed, yawning deeply and soon knocking out into slumber.

(Sort of late for this one, mainly my fault for sort of forgetting about this chapter. Not much to report, still cold where I live, sucks.

Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating this Thursday, eat til you drop, and to those going to Black Friday, make sure to being extra body armour, pepper spray, and a taser for when you exit the store, very easy to get jumped...

Only two reviews for this chapter.

Review from DxHologram on Nov. 12: Thanks for reading the chapter, but I think you're misunderstanding something. The guys that attacked the elves and other people at the mess hall were not your run of the mill standard bandits, they were Guards sent by the capital who are in full armour meant for possible sieges against them. Sorry if you got confused from this part, I should've explained this better.

Review from Gen2324: If Tsukiyo went Full Devil trigger mode on those adventurers in the Tavern, he would've been made an enemy of the state by the people of the guild. There's no coming back from that once you've been made an enemy of the state. Besides, Kosuke was there too, and I'm pretty sure He would've taken down Tsukiyo in one hit, he's got almost 7 years of experience taking down demons daily, Tsukiyo isn't anywhere as skilled as Kosuke to land a dent of him if they fought. It's an interesting concept to think about, but even if Kosuke wasn't there to stop him, where could Tsukiyo go?


	33. Unexpected Endings(Off Grid P4)

I was sleeping peacefully even though I was sleeping on a table, compared to last night at least I was able to fully rest myself for a while even if I haven't ate yet.

I would continue to rest for a couple of minutes before I felt a soft poke on my face.

As I slowly opened my eyes, not from drowsiness, but because they almost got frozen shut from the cold, I saw a figure with blond hair laying their head right in front of me as they peered into my eyes.

For a moment they really looked like…

" _Good morning…_ " She said in a low seductive tone.

I shot up from where I was laying my head down with my eyes wide open looking at the person who was laying their head right next to mine.

"Oh my, eager to talk to me that much are you?" Zofia said as she lifted her head and giggled to herself. My blood pressure rises once again…

"What are you doing here?" I said while rubbing my eyes trying to make my eyelashes unfrozen.

"Oh you know, I was just in the neighborhood and decided to visit my hometown and sister for the moment. I find it surprising that you're living here in some kind of peace." She said as she started to stretch her arms.

"Hold on, this is your hometown? I thought you were from the Northern Elf Clan." I asked her

"Oh you actually believed that? Yeah, I lied. I didn't feel like telling the truth, too much effort to do so, still would've been nice to actually live there. I heard their foods great." Zofia said casually as she gave me a warm smile that most likely hides more deviant intent…

"So I guess you're also a half Elf too then, I guess that makes sense since you can tolerate Kosuke and actually work with him. By the way, please tell me he isn't here, I don't want my blood pressure to rise even more. Handling you is enough…" I said as I looked around the tables and so no sign of a red coat or someone being overly obnoxious…

"Oh you don't need to be worried about him, he's staying at the company building, says that 'He won't come out until all the snows been sent to hell.' He really does over exaggerate on a lot of stuff." She said as she leaned on her hand looking around the mess hall. At least that one other thing both of us can agree on…

Someone cleared their throat behind us as we talked, and when we did it was Meryl who had a small plate of what looks like to be some meat and beans.

Zofia smiled while giving Meryl and innocent look, "Hi loli VP! How are you doing this fine evening? Hmmm?" Meryl looked at Zofia in disgust and just handed me the plate and fork without saying a word.

I guess it was safe to say that those two have an interesting history together…

I turned to my food and started to eat it, I'm not gonna ask any-

I was suddenly interrupted when Zofia placed her hand on my wrist stopping me from eating, and got close to my face, "Hey, come on...Ask me about the little loli President in Training...Ask why I know her." She said very menacingly.

I used most of my strength to pry her hand away from my wrist, I wanted to get her hand off asap since people were already staring at me to begin with, I don't need more attention!

We struggled for a good couple of minutes, why can't she just leave me in peace! At this point she just might be just as bad as Aqua!

Zofia started to beg a bit while struggling, "Hey, come on! Talk to me! Most people were won't talk to me cause they know who I am and don't like dealing with me, you're only hope here!"

I continued to struggle while she begged, "If they don't like dealing with you, what makes you think that I'll like dealing with you!"

I'm seriously starving here, can be I left alone to eat in peace for one moment!?

A kids voice rang out as it sort of rang through the halls, "Auntie!" We both stopped struggling for a moment and looked to where the voice came from.

A kid soon came up to Zofia and started to hug her tightly in the process, Zofia finally let go of my wrist and started to focus on the kid who looked oddly familiar.

"Oh it's you two…" Another voice rang out as she walked behind me, it was Karin. She seemed to be surprised to see me here, but was a bit more hesitant when she saw Zofia.

"Oh Hey sis, long time no see, how are you doing? Korin's uh...gotten bigger since the last time I saw him…" Zofia started to get a bit nervous when talking to Karin.

Hooold on...what? Karin and Zofia, looked nothing alike.

Karin had a innocent look on her face that hid malice when she spoke to Zofia, "Oh I've been doing just fine, I know that's been 75 years since you last visited so I guess Korin did get a bit bigger, hasn't he?" She said her tone got serious at the end.

It was at this time that Zofia knew...she might fucked up badly as she tried to hide behind me while talking to her sister.

I tried to move to another seat but was held down by the insane grip that Zofia had when she held me down, I know that I'm really gonna regret saying this but at this point I can't move anywhere else…

"I really don't want to ask, but because I'm sort of a hostage here I don't have much of a choice so...what Zofia's deal? Why is she like this?" I asked.

Karin had a warm smile when she pulled her son, Korin, to the side, "I think I see your friends over there. Why don't you go have fun with them, Mommy's got some things to disgust with her friend and auntie, ok?" Korin, being the painfully innocent kid he is, just accepted it and went to play with his friends.

I felt the grip that was holding me down loosen as Zofia tried to leave through the back exit. I was starting to get a sense of deja vu as she was caught by some of the chefs and soon caught by Karin who dragged her back to where I was sitting, by her shirt collar, choking her in the process.

Zofia was soon sat down and facing her sister face to face with me eating my food on the sidelines.

Karin cleared her throat as she turned towards her sister, "So...what have you been doing for the past 75 years, hmmm?" Why did I feel killing intent when she asked that question.

"O-oh...you know...Exploring the land...doing cool quests...meeting cool people…" Zofia said lowly as she slightly trembled in place.

Karin cleared her throat deeply which made Zofia jump, "cle...y…..bt…." Zofia mumbled…

"What was that dear sister, speak up..." She growled as she gave her a hard glare that could probably rival Vergil's glare.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- --

 _As if…_

Zofia spoke once more but a bit louder, "Clearing my debt…"

Karin started to both glare and look down at her sister in a neutral tone, "Oh my, I wonder why my dear sister is in debt...care to explain, or should I guess why?"

"P-please have mercy…" Zofia said while looking down on the table.

"Hmmm, how about no? Lets see if this sounds familiar:" Karin said as she started to put her sister in the meat grinder "Oh, remember the time where you bought a lot of clothes from other towns that looked nice but didn't fit you at all? Hmm? Oh, Oh! Wait, how about the time your "prank" nearly got you kicked out of the village cause you got almost everyone the flu? How about that? Oh Wait no, this is the best one yet! How about the time where you abandon your sister for 75 years doing god knows what and not writing back, sending some kind of message, or signal saying that you're okay!?" Karin said angrily as she was just about to flip the table.

Karin calmed herself down as she and Zofia were on the edge of breaking. Karin breathed in for a couple of minutes before finishing her statement, "Is there anything you have to say for yourself?"

Zofia sat there, trembling from fear shaking her head lightly, "Please forgive me…" she squeaked out.

Man, the women in this world are either normal (which is less than 0.1% of the time), weird, or fucking nuts…

Karin sighed after venting her anger for a moment before cooling down and coming back down to earth, "Alright, fine. I'll forgive you this one time, but...if you disappear one more time like before...so help me goddess of forgiveness, you will-" Karin was now interrupted by her son when he came up to her, "Hey Mom, me and some of my friends are gonna play in the snow, Is it okay to do that?" Karin went from 'Going to fucking murder you and wear your face' to 'Loving Mother' in less than a second.

"Sure, of course you can do that, just make sure to wear your coat when you and friends go out to play, ok?" Karin said with a warm smile. Her kid nodded at her and ran outside with his friends that were 2 lizardmen (Lizard Kids?) and some other half elves.

Karin turned back towards us and Continued her "forgiveness."

"You get the idea, don't you?" Her attitude grew sour as she glared at Zofia again. Zofia nodded furiously as she was driven to tear by her sister.

Karin turned towards me and gave me an apologetic look, "I'm sorry you had to see that, it's just that my Younger sister here just doesn't know common sense even if it hit her upside the head."

I was able to relate to her when she said that, "Oh it's ok, I can definitely think up of multiple people that reminds me of you sister here, myself included since I have an older brother. They're the main reason why I'm here in this village…" I said as I finished my food.

Zofia, after cheering up and back to her normal self, spoke up after her brief silence, "Oh speaking of your party, Apparently they were confronted by the capital this morning when they heard that you left. As of right now, they're sort of on a manhunt looking for you, but have no clue where you are."

Oh right...I'm still in trial…

"Oh that's right," Karin said as she tried to remember something, "You were put in prison for blowing up a Landlords house weren't you?" She asked

I soon began to explain the entire situation to both of them like I always did for the people who always took what they were told to face value.

"That's horrible! We should at least tell the town the true story so your name can be cleared…" Karin said determined since she didn't like the fact that I was being treated so poorly because of being a demon, She didn't know that I was only part demon, but I guess that doesn't really matter in terms of what I look like.

"It's ok, You don't have to go so far to do that for me. I've sort of already accepted being one even if it meant being poorly treated, It doesn't really…" I was soon cut off and caught off guard by Karin when she grabbed my hands and said to me in a stern big sister like attitude, "Don't say that! Even if you're okay being treated so poorly, doesn't mean that others are okay seeing you be treated like that. You should try and brighten up your attitude, even in the worst of times."

You know, I really wish that I could do that, really. I laughed to myself for a bit before thanked Karin for her kind words, "Thanks Karin, but I can't really do that. My mind has already become messed up to a point where I can't really help but be negative, sometimes in the best of times. But, I can try, I can't make any promises, but I can try."

Karin finally realised that she was grabbing my hands and let them go from embarrassment "O-oh, I'm..sorry…" She said as her face started to flare up a bit, oh no please don't tell me…

I started to feel the same amount of killing intent come from right next to me followed up with a very firm deathgrip at my right shoulder, and when I looked I saw Zofia giving me the same death glare Karin gave to her. "Hey, where do you think you're touching? You better keep your dirty hands off my sister, you already got blondie to yourself so you shouldn't really be cheating on her don't you think?" She said as she turned into a yandere for her sister.

Yeah, they're definitely sisters…

"Huh? Blondie? Do you...already have a girlfriend?" Karin asked me.

"No, I don't. Zofia is just making assumptions because of something a certain someone said the moment I met him…" I said to Karin, next time I see Kosuke, I'm gonna headlock him to stop spreading those rumors…

...but I guess going out with her might not be as bad as it seems...probably...

I soon heard a loud amount of screaming coming from outside that snapped me out of my mind, and what come through the doors was the kids that left earlier, including Karin's son, running towards us filled with fear and tears.

Karin, being the loving mother she is, firmly grasped her son asking what happened.

I wasn't able to him well from his sobs and hiccups, but I heard the word 'Demons' and instantly headed out the doors to confront whatever was waiting outside outside.

As I was heading outside, I heard another set of footsteps follow me as I walked to the mess hall entrance.

I looked behind me and saw Zofia with a much more serious and determined look on her face, it didn't really match with her personality whatsoever but I could tell she's out to kill.

"What?" She asked, I shook my head and looked forwards again, "Nothing…" No point in asking a question I might already know the answer to.

Even though I am still sore from today's training, letting demons rampage around a small village because of some fatigue is really fucking low, and I'm gonna make sure to not reach that far.

As we finally reached the front doors, the only thing we saw in front of us was a side that had 7 guys in leather armour with swords, shields, and a lance along with 2 lizardmen in chainmail with bone weapons ready to pounce at probably the most annoying enemies from a certain videogame on higher diifcultues…

On the other side of the possible half elves, humans, and lizardmen were Lizard Like creatures that had small ancient shields and helmets that moved on all 4. It's entire body was a pale skin tone that had small traces of tan in it's tale while its claw was over extended on its free left limb.

It was an Assault, an enemy that would genuinely piss me off when I encountered it in the game for being so sporadic. What made it even worse was the fact that it had a spore-like plant on it's right shoulder bloomed to full effect with 2 vine like arms that swung around a very sharp thorns on the vine, which makes this an Infected Assault and even more a headache.

"Where's Kosuke?" I asked Zofia

"He's not here, I can only feel the presence of those men and those...things, but not him. This is one of those cases where even he doesn't know that these demon were let loose. So these are on us to fight." She said as she pulled out 2 pistols that looked similar to Ebony and Ivory, but both pistols were a normal gunmetal black with wooden grips.

We both ran up to the other men that were about to fight the Assaults and readied our weapon.

"H-hey! What are you two doing!? Get out of here before things get bad!" One of the guys yelled at us when we joined them.

"Sorry pal, but we're got more experience over you in terms of fighting these things. We're gonna fight these things whether you like it or not." Zofia said sternly as she faced the demons.

The guy who shouted at us smacked his lips, "Fine. Don't blame me if you get hurt...and to you.." He said as he turned towards me, "...Don't even think for a second that this might change things."

I replied to him as I pulled out my Revolver and readied it for battle, "Don't worry, I never expected it to."

I looked at the infected Assaults ahead of us, there were 6 of them and 11 of us, but in terms of skill, this might as well be 6 to 4…

Both sides for silent for some amount of time, waiting, and anticipating what the other side might do. It was as if time has stopped for 5 minutes, and whoever made the first move could very well either die or take one of us out.

It was the Assaults that made the first move as one of them leapt forward of the pack and made a high pitched screams towards us that shredded our eardrums and made a shockwave around it.

We now fought each other, with some of us fighting in groups and a couple fighting alone.

It was a pretty bad scene to see. Two group of 2 men were being overtaken by two assaults from its insane mobility and shield mounted on its arm, while 3 guys just died from getting mauled to death and have its skull caved in by some Assaults. The Lizardmen, while it does look like they're equally matched are still having a hard time trying to kill the other demonic lizard.

Zofia seemed it have it under control firing her two pistols rapidly at one Assault, pushing it back and dodging it sharp vines. Although I didn't notice it before, it seemed like her pistol started to glow a bright white while small bursts of silver electricity was starting to come out of her pistols.

I was left in a bad spot, since I struggling just to keep up with it's speed and dodging its deadly swipes that were aimed for my head. Not to mention that I just witnessed 3 guys get mauled and cut down to size the moment this fight started.

Because of that, my adrenaline was starting to climb to the point where my movement speed was starting to faster but I wasn't able to think straight from the sight of 3 mauled dead bodies.

Ok, ok! Calm down! Focus! You need to Focus or you'll end up like them!

Because I wasn't entirely focused on the battle, an Assault managed to cut the top of my head and have blood pour out, blinding my left eye from the blood.

I got knocked down onto the ground, but was on my knees as I held my left eye in pain. My eye wasn't gone yet, but this did hurt like hell!

In turn of getting the top of my head, the Assault that attacked me did stop to regain its stamina.

I took this time to aim my revolver at it and try to shoot it only being able to hit it's left leg once and miss the other shot. The Assault did stagger and start to limp from its leg being shot, but I was able to use Snatch and grab its tail firmly and swing the demon and slam it on the ground multiple times before doing one final slam.

Since it wasn't enough to kill it, it got up from where I slammed it and pounced at me trying to swipe its large-ish claws at my face before grabbing my pistol and shooting my last shot in the Revolver point blank through the holes in its helmet.

The Assault recoiled back in pain onto the ground going apeshit from the pain, I took the Red Queen, walked up to it, and just started slamming its head with the broad side of the Red Queen multiple times trying to crush its skull. It struggled as I was bashing its head in by using the vines attached to it to swipe at my legs, lower body, and arma erratically until I use the tip of the Red Queen to pierce through it helmet and kill it.

By the time I looked back to the others who were still fighting, the body count of 3 dead guys rose up to 6 with 2 guys and one lizardman left, on the other hand Zofia seemed to be in near perfect condition with just a couple of small tears in her skirt and pants.

We've already taken out about 4 of the Assaults, we just needed two more.

The last 2 guys were supporting the last lizardman who was going head to head with and Assault, while Zofia was walking up to an Assault covered in crystals except for its head looking like it was about to be brutally executed.

I walked up to the guys who were supporting the lizardman and was about to help them until the Assault leaped into the lizardman and took a bite out of its neck while the vines on its shoulder pierced through its left arm making the Lizardman fall onto the ground, giving the Assault the perfect opportunity to escape. The lizardman was bleeding heavily as it was on its knees, but not dead yet.

I ran up to the lizardman and was about to help it up, but was shoved aside by the other 2 survivors that were helping it up themselves, "Out of the way..." The spat at me as they started to rip off leather from their gear to block the wounds that was on its neck and arm.

I was soon approached by Zofia and was surprised by the very sad look she had when she looked down on all the dead guys and lizardman. She started to cry when she knelt down to them and started to pray for them. Out of 9 guys that fought with me and Zofia, 6 of them were mauled with their head either missing or bashed, internals torn out, and skin completely lacerated from 5 demons that died, while one got away.

What's worse is that these guys weren't even prepared whatsoever for demon who relied on speed and sneak attacks. I knelt down with Zofia and started to pray with her.

With my adrenaline high finally gone, I was now able to feel the pain the assault inflicted on me as we fought, but I Ignored the pain, because this pain is miniscule to the amount of pain the family will feel when they hear the news…

It wasn't long before people started to gather, scream in pain, cry, and mourn for their dead loved ones.

Gravekeeper's brought out tarps and started to dig graves for those fallen, women cried out in pain for hours and didn't seem like they were gonna stop, and children weren't even censored from what they saw in front of them if it was a neighbor they saw dead on the ground or their own dad.

The survivors were given some type of treatment whether it be in the form of magic or in a bottle of alcohol, they tried as much as they could to numb the pain. My head and arms was bandaged up by Karin since no one else bothered to care for me, Zofia was right next to me sniffling, and the rest of the day just felt grey…

By the time everyone left, they either went to a gravestone or their home, it was already sunset and I was just still in the same spot, taking everything in with the snow still stained red.

Meryl, who was now gloomy sat next to me, and asked me in a emotionless tone "Does any of this come close to what you've experienced as an adventurer?"

"Yeah," I replied, "It's close to about 2 memories, why?"

She shook her head, "It's nothing…" She said as she got up and started to walk towards the Elder house, probably for a report.

I sat there for another 5 minutes before before standing up from the steps of the mess hall and started to walk home.

As I was walking, I started to wonder if things might've been different if I was stronger...if I was at a state much better than I already am...Why did I have to take that much time into killing one Assault!? I could've done so much more and probably saved some more of those guys if I had been better! What good am I as an adventurer if I can't even save the people next to me…

First it was Kazuma from the winter spirit, and now it was 6 men with families in this town!

I stopped walking for a bit and just started to get pissed off at my weakness', but more so myself for having them…

I soon heard a high pitch scream in the distance, it almost sounded like...Meryl!

I sprinted as fast as I could to where the elders house was, after 5 minutes of pure sprinting, I found Meryl next to the wall clutching her right arm as she was cut up badly from the escaped Assault.

It was right about to shoot its vines into her but managed to stop or doing so by shooting at its side, "Meryl! Get out of here!" I said as the assault started to get distracted from me and attack me.

Meryl started to run away from here while clutching her arm.

It was now about to be a 1v1 where I could at least vent out my frustrations at this thing that took the lives of the men who haven't lived their life to the fullest!

This would've been a fair fight it was just him that I was going to fight, but then it started to glow dark red and morph into something else...Now this...was new to me…

It was now standing on two feet and grew 4 more vines from its shoulder while it's body structure started to get much more beefier with its claws growing sharper and larger with its shield moving towards it stomach than its arm. The helmet that contained its face broke open and went from lizard like to more dragon like. It shouted at me in full force as the ground beneath it started to crack.

I wasn't prepared for this at all, it's strength as a standard Assault was barely enough for me to handle…

I started to back away from it hoping to lure it somewhere else, but was outsmarted since it ran full force at me.

I exceeded my sword to level 2 and tried to go for a heavy horizontal slash, but was outsmarted as it jumped over the sword at the last minute and pinned me down to the ground with both its feet on my shoulders.

It dug its large claws through my Demon arm making me scream in pain, what I felt in the past in terms of near dying is nothing compared to what I'm feeling right now!

I tried to go for my pistol was stopped as it started to dig its feet claws into my shoulder and collar bone.

I tried to go Devil trigger to try and throw this thing off me, but wasn't able to throw him off even with it.

As of right now, I was completely defenseless and was at the evolved Assault's mercy, for the first time in my life, excluding my first death, I was truly terrified and helpless.

So much so that I black out from fear, and probably blood loss.

For a while, I couldn't wake up from what seemed like hours. I wasn't sure what would happen next, all I was nothing until a bright light shone at the middle of my vision.

By the time I open my eyes fully from the light that blinded me, I was back at the place where my adventure began...in a bright room where all that surrounded me was a just the emptiness of space where there was only 2 figures in the room.

Just me...and Eris…

(You know, I was really, really considering not doing this and saving it for later, but right now I have a pretty good idea for what to type up next, but part of me feels like it's more of 50/50 type of idea, super hit or miss…

BTW thanks for 80 story saves, that actually surprises me since I only thought I'd stop at about 60, but I guess people actually like this story. Maybe I should start liking this story too...nah...

Review from Gen2324 from Nov. 19: Thanks for leaving a review and no, your idea for the MC abandonment is not a 'not a good idea', it might've not fit for this story, but might be borderline perfect for someone else's. Bob Marley: No mistakes, only happy accidents my dude. R.I.P Stan Lee, I'm not really much of a marvel fan, maybe when I was younger, but besides the point, from a creative point of view, that man has my utmost respect. One man really can create a difference.

Review from DxHologram from Nov. 19: Thanks for leaving review, and for the first time I'm isrt of speechless since I don't know how to reply to this since I'm not sure how to reply to you. I guess all I can say is that, yes Tsukiyo will be a little bit more like Nero, but still have traces of Vergil fused in too. You'll see that next chapter.

Review from Guest account Saru, from Nov. 19: Thanks for reading my chapter, and like I told Gen2324, R.I.P Stan Lee, I'm not really much of a marvel fan, maybe when I was younger, but from a creative point of view, that man has my utmost respect. One man really can create a difference.

Review from Guest account Jenson, from Nov. 20: Thanks for leaving a review, and yeah, Vergil Training Tsukiyo has become necessary for him since he needs Tsukiyo to Survive for him to survive. Gonna make Vergil go straight up bootcamp on him. Tsukiyo will get to Nero status of badassery, but it takes times and lot of experience, he'll get there, someday. Yes, I've already mentioned to other people that it was a dick move to do that, even I acknowledged it, but don't worry I got a good plan on what to do next. Will Darkness' dad send a hunting party? I don't know, you tell me ;)

Review from YukiMegi who didn't die from the MHA fandom, from Nov. 22: Thanks for leaving review and welcome back to some pretty shit writing from me, and yes you might be the only one thinking of the stone faced Bitch boi (What I call Vigil.) as for your last sentence….are you some kind of goddamn psychic? I was planning on a chapter like that ever since chapt. 20, and I planned in making it sort of emotional with some unexpected elements that will stick with Tsukiyo permanently.

Review from Guest account Perry (the Spy Platypus, people who understand this gets a veteran discount) from Nov. 21: Thanks for leaving a review, and yes during the entire Vergil bootcamp thing, his stats will definitely increase from low tier to manageable by the time the Off Grid chapters end. And yes, he does have some right to be angry, but not a lot since he did the things he did of his own accord, sacrifice included. He will go from hot trash adventurer to decent boi soon.


	34. Vergil's Bootcamp (Off Grid P5)

I was back to where it all started for me.

Eris was in front of me as she looked uncomfortable looking at me.

I couldn't really blame her, I made things escalate so far when I Was here the first time to the point where a higher up came down just to tell me that I was able to get my demon arm and another wish instead of sending me straight to hell.

"H-hello, Tsukiyo Nakano. I'm very sorry to see you come here again, Especially after how things went with your party…but aside from that, you're dead now..." Eris said as she apologized.

I wasn't sure with what to respond with, not because of her statement, but from the fact that I died again.

"Tsukiyo?" She said as I snapped myself out of my own trance, "Huh? Oh, sorry...just coming to terms with uh..dying...again.." I said as I wasn't entirely paying attention to the conversation.

"Oh, it's alright. To be honest, compared to most people, your somewhat the calmest one out of all the ones who come here." She said as she sort of tried to break the awkward silence.

"...But still, I'm amazed at the fact that you were able to get along with people despite being part demon, well at least people in the beginner town and not the village entirely. I'm more amazed that you were able to survive with the party of yours. Of course, you could have always changed parties and tried to find another one much more beneficial to your skill set but you pushed on and changed things for the better, I'm impressed to say the least…" Eris said as she finished complimenting my old life.

I guess she is right, I did manage to go through of the odds that were always against me with the horribly balanced team of mine, even if I did almost die a couple of times.

"..but aside from that, you did experience a lot of pain, headaches, mostly things that shouldn't have happen, most of it unnecessarily targeted towards you because of your demon part and others mainly because of your team…" She hesitantly said as she recalled the amount of times that I nearly died and got fucked over from my horrible luck.

I could only manage a small smile to form on my lips from how stupid some of those situations were, but other than that, I can't really feel any type of emotion in this situation as I was staring blanking down at the ground.

Eris then changed her look to be more optimistic about what she would say next, "O-oh I know! How about I reincarnate you to back in Japan? You've already done enough good than most people could manage, so how about I give you a life that could-" at this point I had to cut her off from finishing her offer.

"No. Just, no." I think I've already had enough of my life at this point "No more reincarnations, no more starting over from scratch to get fucked over, and no more over the top stupidity where I'm the scapegoat." I think I'm done trying to live my life.

"Go ahead and send me to heaven. I'm done with the pain, I'm done with the near deaths, I'm done with all the stupid bullshit, I'm just gonna give up…" I've not sure if I have anything else to say at this point, but even if I did It'd just be pointless.

"A-are you sure? Once you go to heaven, there's almost no guarantee that we can bring you back, it's a one way trip, what about your party and all the friends you made?" She asked

"I've already made enemies out of my party and told the entire adventurer population in Axel to go fuck themselves, so I'm pretty sure most of my bridges are burned. The people in the village didn't even like me anyways aside from the Elder and Karin, they won't bat an eye if I gone up and disappeared all of a sudden. Kosuke and Zofia seemed like ok people, but I don't think they'd care much if I disappeared, so in a sense I feel as if…" I couldn't speak any more than what I had already said, "...I really don't know what to say anymore, so I guess I'm just gonna end my life with just that…"

Eris continued to look at me with a saddened expression, "Are you really gonna end it all with just those words? What about Darkness?" she asked me trying to make me change my mind.

"I guess I would just apologise to her if I ever got the chance to do so, she didn't really deserve getting knocked out for the third time, but with someone as headstrong as her I don't think she'd listen to anything I'd say if I tried to use logic and reasoning." I said as I still feel sort of guilty for pulling a dick move on her.

"That's not what I meant, I meant her love for you." Eris told me, oh yeah her dad did say that she did like me didn't he?

"She can find someone else to take care of her, she's only known me for a couple of months. I wouldn't think I'm anything special to her." Me and Darkness are both adults at this point, so she can choose whoever she wants as a groom, it doesn't have to be me, I'm pretty sure there are better options she can choose from.

Eris sighed from our conversation, "You can be quick to give 100% to most of your effort and be nice young man to the core, but your doubt and stubbornness are something else…" She said as she got tired of my attitude.

I smiled faintly, "Sorry, I don't live to impress people…"

Eris gave me one last look, "This is your final warning, are you really sure about this? There is no going back…"

"Yeah I'm..." I was about to reply, until I started to just...cry…

For the next couple of minutes, all I did was cry...I wasn't even sure why…

No matter how hard I tried to wipe away the tears, they just won't stop falling…

Why won't they stop...

Why can't I just accept things where there are right now…?

A pair of hands were placed on my shoulders as I continued to cry, and I was soon embraced by a gentle hug.

I heard Eris whisper a single phrase to me as I was blinded with a bright light, "...I'll do you this favour just once, but this'll be our secret, Ok?"

By the time the bright light that blinded me faded away, I was met with an intense feeling of exhaustion and fatigue, to the point where I couldn't stand up.

When I looked around me all I saw was blood splatter everywhere on the snow along with the dead and almost beyond unrecognizable corpse of the evolved demon that killed me.

I guess Eris resurrected me back into this world as another 2nd chance…

Aside from that, what happened here? It almost looks like a complete massacre…

"So...you're alive…" I heard a voice come from behind me.

When I turned around, I honestly couldn't believe what I was or rather, who I was looking at…

It was Vergil…

...but fully fleshed out as a human and not a spirit…

I really couldn't mistake his voice, his hair, and eye colour, and more importantly his very intimidating aura he displayed.

"I...what?" was all I could manage to utter

"Yeah, me too. I'm not entirely sure how something like this happened either..." He said as he started to examine his body.

In a sense, he dressed very similar to Dante when I played as him back in the game, but...just blue and a bit of gold with slicked back hair. Blue overcoat with gold and light blue designs and trim going down to his shins, turquoise pants and black leather boots, black undershirt and gloves, and to top it all of, the Yamato in his left hand.

"While it does look like I have my own body, I still feel tied to you, take a look…" He said as she pointed towards my Demon arm

When I looked down, I was surprised to see my arm go completely dim. Almost as if his presence was removed, when I got closer and held it out near him, it started to get some of its glow back.

"If I were to make a guess, I'd say the demon probably had something to do with it. It was already overflowing with demonic energy making it evolve further into some type of beast, I'm guessing when it dug its claws into the arm, some of its energy probably...broke something…" Vergil said as he was examining my arm. (Don't worry, he won't rip off this arm…-Konran)

"You still have your adventurer card with you right? Check if there's something that can give us a clue to what's going on…" He asked me, I took out my card from my pocket and looked through each category until I found this description…

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Abilities:

Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness.

Trigger heart - MP reduction has increased from 5 secs per 6 MP to 10 sec per 6 MP. Next upgrade is 15 secs per MP at Lvl. 40.

Uses 6 MP every 10 sec. 60 MP per Min.(1)

 _New*_ Transference: Transfer 95% of your mana to summon Vergil, Son of Sparda. While he does retain all of his abilities and weapons, he is still connected to the host and can last just as long as Devil Trigger. All of the Buster Arms abilities, passive or not, are deactivated and will serve as a normal arm for the time being since the demonic consciousness are transferred as well. Devil Trigger is disabled when Transference is in use.

Current Mana: 1,200/30,000

Time left: 8 hours

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"Yeah, its right here: It's called 'Transference'. It lets me summons you for about 8 hours, while making my demon arm completely normal. It says that you still have all your abilities and that you are still connected to me, so I guess that problems solved, I guess…" I said as Input the card back in my pocket.

"Hmmm" He pondered the thought for a while, "While I do find this convenient, it leaves you out in the open as an easy target. It's probably best to use a skill like this in emergencies…"

As I was about to take a better look at Vergil and his appearance, because of fanboyism, I nearly fell onto the ground on my knees until Vergil grabbed my arm and held it up preventing me from falling.

"I need to know something, how did you come back to life from dying?" Vergil asked as he lifted me up and looked at me

I then remember the conversation I had with Eris, "I..don't know. I was pretty certain that I wanted to go to heaven and rot away, but...part of me didn't want to and I guess I was given another chance...as a favour…" I replied, I was starting to tear up more when thinking about it

Vergil dropped me on the ground as he let my arm go, and turned around, "Then that response itself is all the more reason for me to continue to train you. If you don't want to waste that favour and actually fight for yourself for the first time…" He then turned around and planted the tip of the Yamato scabbard on the ground as he glared needles at me, "...then you'll take this training seriously, get stronger, and make sure your 2nd chance doesn't get wasted. If not, then I'll cut you down where you kneel and drag you to hell with me, got it?"

I wiped out my tears and toughened myself up, I don't have much of a purpose to live on, never had one to begin with aside from surviving. So I guess I'll just have to carry myself on that, no matter how shallow the reason feels.

I struggled from exhaustion to stand up and get to Vergil's height, I stood face to face to him as I told him, "Yeah, I got it."

He looked at me with the same glare, "Good. Starting tomorrow will be your true training, don't disappoint."

I replied to him in with the same glare, "I'll do what I can, I don't live to impress after all…"

He smirked for a moment before fading back into my arm, "Of course you don't…" he replied back.

"Over here! He let me run and fight the demon here!" A voice yelled as a group of footsteps were heading towards me. It looks like Meryl came back with reinforcements to help me out, too bad that it's already too late.

The villagers that she brought, Zofia included, stopped dead in their tracks as they began to see the massacre that was around them.

"What in the name of the gods…" "Disgusting..." "Did he really do all this..?" "No surprise there, he'd rip and tear a demon like him if it got in his way…" I heard their murmurs as they started to survey the area and bad mouth me at the same time.

Zofia came up to me and asked me what happened, all I could do at this situation was lie and say that I pulled some OP move with my demonic abilities and killed it on the spot.

"Oh wow, that's actually very cool...could you show me that move someday?" She asked, "Sure, if we're about to die with no choice left then I'll show you…" I replied back.

The other villagers started to go back to wherever they came from, and not look back on what happened, too much already happened today, it's better to start questioning things tomorrow…

Meryl soon came up to me and asked me a question, "You're really strong are you? To take that demon down all by yourself, you must be some kind of professional…"

"No, I'm not really that strong…" I replied back as I started to head back to the motel, "I'm just really stubborn on not wanting to die."

By the time I made it back to the Motel, I headed straight for my room to sleep everything off and wait for tomorrow, but before I could do that, there was a letter that laid neatly on my pillow.

When I took the letter and examined it, there was no signature or anything saying who it was from, only a small red sticker keeping the letter shut.

When I opened the letter and read it, I Could already tell who it was…

 _Tsukiyo,_

 _You really deserved this 2nd chance, or third chance at this point._

 _You do so much good and most of the time you are only met with pain and unfair rewards, partially from Aqua…_

 _You and I both know that you aren't ready to go, not yet._

 _There is still a lot of good you can do with this second chance, so please take better care of yourself._

 _I already have Aqua breaking the rules left and right, please don't make me have to do this again…_

 _Eris~_

Normally, I never make promises since I always know that I won't be able to own up to it and fulfill it, but this might be a time where I could make a small promise to take care of myself, or at least try to...

The letter soon disappeared in a small flash of light, leaving no traces behind.

I took off all of my equipment, laid in my bed to rest, and waited for morning to come to start my training with Vergil. I just hope that I Don't fail too hard…

For the 2 weeks I was training with Vergil, I was in a constant cycle of sleeping for a maximum of 6 hours, waking up at the crack of dawn, and getting my ass handed to me by Vergil when he's in his human form, pair that with a lot of fatigue from 95% of my mana with the enjoyment of food being gone makes for a bad combination of bootcamp to the extreme.

Just like he said the first day, we'd be working on Pain Resilience.

In translation, he means that he's going to use his CQC moves, paired up with Beowulf, which is just reskinned Gilgamesh.

For the entire day, he just went full on killing mode and beat me black and blue for about 6 hours, before making me run another 10 laps around the town with a couple of broken ribs, which was another 5 hours of pain.

While only being given only a couple of hours to rest, it was already day one and I feel like I Was about implode from the inside.

Second day came, this time he made my work on my swordsmanship.

I'd be facing off against Vergil. He'd use the Yamato with the scabbard on while I tried to land at least one slice in his clothing.

Because of his experience with the Yamato and generally facing off against enemies faster than him, you could guess how this went for me when we started…

Just like the day before, I was beaten black and blue, with a lot more bruises and less broken ribs. While I did manage to catch him off guard for one moment, he pulled off some type of magic that made swords fall from the sky and made me stay in place.

I called it a cheap tactic, he told me 'Tough shit, a battle is almost never fair.'

I got a lot more bruises and was made to run 10 more laps around the village.

Day 3 wasn't as bad as it seemed in the beginning, but only the beginning...the 2nd part sucked so much..

We tried to improve my range with both the Snatch feature in my arm and my accuracy with the Pistol.

Vergil set up a bunch of 5 inch long by 2 inch wide by 6 inch high wooden planks for me to shoot from over 30 feet away.

Out of a total of 50 mini logs, I managed to get just about 20-24 of them. I was told to start over every time I got below 45, even though it was annoying, I got it done in a couple of hours.

What really sucked was the second part dealing with my arm.

Vergil went back into my arm for it to used, and started to summon a lot of swords heading towards me very fast and told me to catch them. Catch them!

My demon arm was cut up to the point where I had to tear off a chunk of my cloak to just stop the bleeding…

The fourth day took advantage of my hurt demon arm as Vergil told me to cut down 50 trees using my demon arm that was still sort of recovering, without the help of my normal arm.

It didn't help that all he gave me was a sort of dulled bone axe we found in a shed...

When I tried to swing the bone axe at the tree, all the pain that was in my arm yesterday, doubled in sensitivity and pain.

Each swing in the tree made it throb badly, and the cold air made me shiver uncontrollably and got me on my knees from the cold.

It's a good things the Red Queen had the exceed function to warm me up from the cold….until Vergil took it away and told me to deal with the cold…

The fifth day came and this time instead of doing some kind of physical training, we went to do some mental training.

Never in my entire life, have I been so mindfucked on what Vergil is teaching me.

I thought it'd be something like some mind tricks to throw me off my guard and probably do some mentality breaking but no, this dude is teaching me quantum physics, the highest form of trigonometry, calculus, and statistics using the entire alphabet for some kind of variable, greek lettering included, and literally trying to analyze time and space itself...

I already dealt with enough shit back in high school, I don't need to experience that trauma all over again…

Day six was a godsend over what I experienced yesterday.

All I had to do was dodge all of Vergil's judgement cuts, Yamato slices, and summoned swords with one hand tied behind my back, all while he's in Devil Trigger….

...fuck…

Day fourteen came, and just like day 2, I'd be facing off against him...again

I know that this was a sort of big timeskip, but this week was just the same cycle of training he put me through within the first week.

With all the shit that he'd put me through, you think that I'd get a little bit better at my skills, right?

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Red Queen:

Damage multiplier - x2.8 (Max. x5.0) Upgrade: 1 point per x0.1

Exceed Bonus - x1.9 (Max 2.0) Increased Every 5 levels by 0.1

Range - 8 inches (Max 1.5 Feet) Upgrade: 1 inch per point

Swing speed - 125% (Max 150%) Upgrade: 1% per 1 point

Knockback - x1.5 (Max x2.0) Increases as Red Queen receives upgrades

Demonic Cleanser: When held with the Devil Bringer, impact is increased by x1.5 and damage is increased by x1.5 in exchange for swing speed ( -25%)

Berial's Flames from the Fire Hell: When Red Queen is Exceeded beyond level 1, flames get more deadlier at the cost of 20% chance of inflicting self fire damage on level 2, and 40% when on level 3

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Devil Bringer

(Buster) Strength - 170% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5%

Lift Strength - 110 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 14 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet

Treasure Detection - Devil arm will glow brightly when near treasures or secret items within 10ft, can only be used when concentrating solely on the arm.

Shield of Credo - The Devil Bringer is now able to hold an enemy and use it as a shield, 40% chance of it working. Enemy can only be lifted if it's within the Lift Strength.

Bael's Cold Grip - When an enemy is being held on as a shield, it will not be able fight back for 5 minutes. Enemies attacking the shield has 25% chance of getting frost damage, and if the shielded enemy is slammed, it will shatter from 100% frost damage.

Unyielding strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Demon Drain: Drain any demonic or evil essence from an enemy and use it against them via a punch or Blue Rose Shot. Strength increases depending on how strong an enemy is, x1.0-x2.5 Fixed dmg.

Power of Sparda: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% Vitality

25% Strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

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Blue Rose

Normal Shot: Shoot 6 bullets in the form of 3 shots, (2 Bullets per shot) Will take 5 seconds to reload, costs 12 mana per reload.

(10 dmg per shot)

Charged shot: Drain the demonic Essence from enemies and use it against them. Shoots all 6 bullets in 1 Shot, Takes 36 Mp per shot, 10 seconds to reload.

New* Pistol Whip: Use the grip of your Pistol to melee an enemy, will have fixed .5x Crit. chance if pulled off successfully. Uses .75x of Strength attribute.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Abilities

Sprint Speed - 135% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 95)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness.

Trigger heart - MP reduction has increased from 5 secs per 6 MP to 10 sec per 6 MP. Next upgrade is 15 secs per 6 MP at Lvl. 40.

Uses 6 MP every 10 sec. 60 MP per Min.

Current MP: 1,200/30,000

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Swordsman

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x1.6 (Max 2.0) Upgrade is x0.1 per point

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 70% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 40

MP Usage reduction with swords - 25% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 30% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 30% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Current Level : 35 _(Was 28)_

Strength : 95 _(Was 63)_ Status--Normal

Vitality : 2450/2450 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 30,000

Stamina : 78 _(Was 45)_

Defense : 98 _(Was 66)_

Agility : 80 _(Was 50)_

Luck : 74 _(Was 42)_

Faith : -6 _(Was -10)_

Dexterity : 71 _(Was 41)_

Will : 90 _(Was 70)_

Intelligence : 88 _(Was 60)_

Shooting : 70% / 100%

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

While my card seems to say so...Vergil's scabbard says otherwise…

Another day of black and blue bruises, at least I lasted another half an hour before getting knocked out…

This constant cycle of getting beat and learning from it only lasted 2 weeks, since it was just my swordsmanship and multi-tasking fighting that needed work.

In all honesty, I never thought I'd make it this far with Vergil's training. His training was extreme, but overall extremely helpful in terms of getting pushed rapidly in the right direction.

...just no more math, science, and mindfucking topics please….

Vergil sighed as he finished training with me. I wasn't as black and blue as I was back in day 1, but still pretty bruised.

"I think we're done in general. You're still not as good as me, or even a quarter as good, but you're at least manageable to an extent of surviving on your own. I can't believe I'm saying this, but you're not bad…" Vergil said as he made the Yamato disappear while giving me a formal handshake.

"Now, there's only one thing I have to teach you. This one is something that you'll have to decide on your own when the time comes, and no one is usually ready when this scenario happens." Vergil said as his tone get very serious.

"Well, I've already made it this far and haven't backed down yet, except for the times I got knocked out…" I replied as I rubbed the back of my head in pain from all the whacks…

"This lesson...is about killing…" Vergil said as his glare unchanged.

Oh…

"At one point of every adventurers lives, they're gonna be met with a choice to kill not only animals and monsters, but other humans, demons, or living sentient being. When the situation presents itself, you only have a split second to decide things, whether you kill them or they kill you. There is no inbetween." Vergil continued.

"Believe me when I say this," He said as he got closer to my face "There is no just killing, no killing in what's right or wrong, no killing to give a purpose. Boundless slaughter is normal in the natural world. Everything gets easier with time, killing isn't an exception to that rule."

...I was about to cross that line when I first got here in the village. The guards that came to this town early and demanded pay where I was able to stop them from taking hostages, of course I did get my ass beat from an unexpected sneak attack, but that was the only time where I was about to kill.

If I made choice back then to kill them, I wonder what would've happened to me back then…

My forehead was flicked by Vergil as he dragged me out of my daydreams, "You can take the rest of the day off now, we're already done with training, and you're competent enough to take hits and maybe dish some out. Just don't forget what I taught you and continue to work on your skills." Vergil left me with those words as he disappeared back into my arm and returned the remaining amount of mana he had left.

Alright well, if we're done with training, then I might as well take this time to celebrate by having 4:1 meat to rice meal, and not suffer any consequences unlike most actors and models…

As I made my way to the mess hall to get myself a proper meal that I was able to enjoy, I noticed that there was a small scene going on in front of the mess hall. People were gathered around the entrance making some kind of commotion.

As I walked up to the entrance to see what was going on, my heart dropped when I saw what was going on.

I was in a wanted poster, being rewarded for a million Eris if I was found dead or alive.

(Quick thing about the (1) that I placed, originally when I did the math to put it up to 30K, I put in the wrong numbers on chapter 32. I was supposed to put 6 originally instead of 1, for every 10 secs it took 6mp, every minute was 60, every hour was 3,600, and the max for it to be 8 hours was 28,800. I probably won't upgrade the MP bar nymore or until later in some other volume. I'll make sure to change it in 32 so if you get a notification about it, just ignore it.

This chapter was also made longer because of the fact that I won't be posting a chapter next week and the week after. This is mainly because of finals and the fact that I have a lot of stuff to work on. After finals are over, which is Dec. 12, 13 and 17, I might go back to 2 chapter updates for the month until the spring semester starts, then it's back to 1 update.

Other than that, the snow is starting to be real where I live and it's starting to become really shitty. I feel like the end of the 'Off Grid' chapters might be coming soon, since I already have the end and transitional chapter back to LN in mind, but am not entirely sure how to pull it off, so it still needs some work and time.

One last thing: R.I.P The Creator of Spongebob. Unlike Stan Lee where I wasn't a huge Marvel fan, Spongebob was a large part of my childhood where I just loved each episode for making me laugh and giving me a smile, and now that I'm a lot older, I can appreciate some of the messages and memes that I can understand now. I know that there might be a movie in 2020 which might signal its official end, but it'll be sad to see it end since there will not be a show like that again, most can try but it won't be like the original.

Do me a small favour, when you have kids of your own, tell them about Spongebob. It's a very one of a kind show that you won't find anywhere else because of the sensitive media of today.

Review by DxHologram on Nov. 25: I think I might've confused you a bit with my last reply, I didn't mean it in a bad way, I meant it in a good way as in you said a lot of positive feedback and some good criticism which was a good thing, don't apologise. And yes, Tsukiyo already learned that fact if the type of place he now lives in, but is constantly surprised by the amount of stupidity that has yet to be revealed. Also thanks for some clarification towards the Nero and Vergil comparison, this definitely gives a little bit more material to work off of instead of just going to the wikia page and working based off that. But as for why he fights, I feel like I'm going to have to work in that a bit more and improve upon it in the later chapters.

Review by Gen2324 on Nov. 25: It's alright, you don't have to apologise. I was sort of anticipating something like this when dealing with this type of scenario with getting outcasted despite being a helping hand. I'm not sure if I did the Eris section as well as I wanted it to be since I had to revise it 3 times, but I guess what I have right now is the best I can do. Sorry If I disappointed.

Review by Guest Account, Saru, on Nov. 26: Thanks for leaving a review, and yeah, this was something that I missed out on doing in the very beginning of this story and wanted to expand upon on that chapter. He is a demon, he will be criticized and unappreciated because he's a demon. You saw that back in the prison when he got jumped. One thing thought, it wasn't the lizardmen who pushed him aside, it was just 2 beaten down human/elf hybrids who pushed Tsukiyo aside to help the Lizardman from bleeding out (Digging deeper just to throw it away! LP reference) Yes, people who are hybrids can outcast another Hybrid, this is why the Elder is trying to help Tsukiyo instead of casting him out, he's just like them in a sense, casted out by society (or at least he casted himself out) for being different and not the norm.

Review by YukiMegi on Nov. 26: Just like you, I've been on this site way before I became Konran, and way before I got any creative sense to do anything. The only thing I'll say about your 'Skill', don't go to Vegas, why? Because Karma will take away your luck, don't ask how I know. You thought I was gonna make my boi pull some Kirito stuff? Naw, I'm not gonna Kirito my boi, I'd rather have him die than get some kind of plot armour that lasts almost all the seasons. While you did guess the chapter that will happen, you didn't guess when, mainly because It might be at the epilogue of the Off Grid Chapters. Another thing, I'm really fucking lazy with naming new characters, I named Zofia from R6 cause it sounded fancy/casual, Named Karin off of Kirin from Monster Hunter and my fear of him, and her son Korin from Fire Emblem even though I never played the game...yeah…Your veteran discount only takes off 50 cents off gas and only lasts 1 month...

Review by Guest Account, Perry, on Nov 26: Thanks for the review, and yes I do like to do references and memes based off peoples names sometimes. It's just fun. Tsukiyo will become just as badass as Nero, but it will take some time, I gotta find a good placement and scenario for it to be true.

Review from Guest Account, Jenson, on Nov. 27: Yes, I did know that netflix is going for a Devil May Cry series, and even though Netflix did really ass on some adaptations, I feel like this one might be better than most. Did you know that they're gonna make a Cowboy Bebop adaptation? It's sad that Keanu Reeves might not have the role of Spike...


	35. Q and A Response 12-08-18

(sorry if you already got a notification for this, I just want to make sure that the notification is actually working.)

Hey there guys, Kommunist Komrad Konran here.

You already know about this "chapter" so I'm not gonna re-explain the main purpose of this page.

I won't say, "Today, I'm gonna read out the questions that you guys left me from a review or a private message." I'm not gonna say it or even type….it…..fack

I won't be saying who asks the questions just in case any if you guys had the same question so you'll know your question when you see it.

 **\-- What's your overall plan for this Fict./Story?**

You know, I really don't have much of a endgame. If you scroll to the very, very bottom of the review section from June, you'll see my very first mentality and attitude for this story. Over time the uncaring attitude for my story grew into a hobby since I was enjoying myself a bit, did I like my story at all? In 100% seriousness, I don't enjoy this story. You've seen me joke about it many many times, but it's actually true. The main reason why I don't like it is because like I said before, in a sense, I always feel like my story is sort of a rehash of the Light Novel since I want it to relate to the LN but not deviate too much where its a completely different story since I have no creativity for that (BuT ThAt'S ThE PoInT oF FanfIcTiOnS DuRrHurR *sorry for bring back a dead meme*).

Of course there are the DMC twists that I added into it along with the 'Off Grid' Chapters, (with the soon to be released self made OVA's that will be crossovers with other games, random 'one and done' scenarios, and possible collabs with other writers, if they want to or even know who I am…) which are making my opinions slightly better, but still pretty negative. Sorry for off tangent, but overall: I'm just gonna keep going until I burn out completely, finish all LN's, get too busy with school/work/life, or finish it off when Tsukiyo and Darkness become an actual ship with an epilogue chapter or two.

If I do completely burn out, the last chapter I'll ever post might be the longest chapter since I'll be explaining every possible scenario, ship moments, and things that I'd do differently from the remaining LN's, IF that were to happen, for now, I'm just gonna keep going.

Also If I feel like it, I'll put my Steam and Discord name for others to friend request if they want to...

 **\-- How did you get into FanFiction and Writing? Did you have any inspirations or did you feel like it?**

Going back to where my first expectations for this story from my first comments, it was all from DMC5 hype back when the E3 2018 trailer was shown. I was hyped as fuck cause I never knew I needed a DMC5 so badly until Lord Itsuno blessed us with the trailer, I've been running on the hype for 1-2 months, but now I write just because.

When I wanted to write this Fic. I had zero expectations for it being any good and was just about done reading Vol. 9 of the Konosuba Light Novel. Within each of the chapters there was at least 2-3 moments where I was able to change it with another scenario of some kind, and sort of have it end up the same way. Doing this is sort of a good-ish way to increase creativity.

And I said to myself, _"Oh God, I think I'm peaking max weebness with this…I need to stop"_ With each day that passed, my interest for the fiction grew up until I grabbed my laptop and said _"Fuck it Why the hell not, it's not like people will like this shitty story."_ And I was somehow proved wrong…

I don't have the alpha version of this Fic because it got deleted by the inactive Document system by FanFiction, but I do remember it: It was basically a story of Tsukiyo as a 19 year old running away from home after being abused by his dad almost every night, he decided to run away from home a start life anew until Truck-Kun came and killed him just like majority of anime main characters. I decided to scrap the idea since it was a done to death topic along with living in a divorced household, with the dad always being gone from gambling, drinking, abuse, no reason at all, etc, (I'm in no way saying that divorced households are overrated, I live in one with my dad, aunt, grandma, and sister. I'm not trying to hate.) After I scrapped the idea, I said fuck it, wrote what came to mind and made it more realistic with some Shonen anime aspects: MC had jobs and is familiar with hard work, cares for other more times than himself, will have lingering feelings that won't go away after a chapter or random anime logic, will struggle and work for success and not go Jesus mode for no reason (SAO), have realistic-ish relationships with other characters and not have a harem from anime logic (SAO again), etc, you get the point since you've read the story.

 _Edit: Random Bullshit Anime Logic just ruins things most times and might make me drop the story/anime completely._

 _Edit 2: I really don't like SAO..._

As for Fanfiction, It all started out back when I was in 7th grade, way before my Weebness was discovered. Most of the shows that I watched began at their peak, maximum creativity and genuine comedy to make a kid smile. The beginning of Adventure Time I think, the beginning of Regular Show, and any movies that came out that were original and not done to death, overrated, or plain A S S compared to today's shows and movies, cough cough Teen Titans Go cough cough…

I read a lot of fictions back then: Adventure Time, Regular Show, Naruto, Kingdom Hearts, anything I found cool or interesting, to the point where I read until 3 AM, (but now that I'm a college student, I can read math textbooks and suffer Calculus at 3 AM, DxHologram might be able to relate...) The cycle continued almost every night until I lost interest in it in 9th grade and needed to get an actual nights rest to survive.

Writing on the other hand...this Fiction in itself is my first fiction and first attempt at storytelling whatsoever, I'm not bullshitting, this is my first serious attempt at a rehashed story. All I did, and all I'm really doing right now at this point, is just writing down what I'm thinking. Sometimes I get idea's randomly throughout the day, whether it be eating, doing school work, driving, or about to sleep, I get some ideas randomly. The only reason why my writing, grammar, and structures looks pretty good in terms of quality is from school assignments and essays in the past. Of course I got a good amount of rough spots, but hey, I'm not really gonna notice them or fix them if a chapters at 90% quality.

I mean, I did take a college class on college level writing and forming structural sentences to make me learn how to sound like I know what I'm talking about back in the spring, but other than that, not much writing.

 **\-- What Keeps You Motivated?**

At this point in the game, not much really. Aside from the fact that I want my boi to eventually get shipped in with Darkness, which a lot of people disagreed with when I made it known, I'm still gonna ship them suck on it haters.

No loli's or useless as fuck whamen, fite me PAX South Alabam-er 2069 m89 fortnite pickaxes only (btw, I really hate Fortnite)

But I guess I do enjoy writing every once in a awhile when a good idea for a chapter comes up, but aside from that, I just do it just to do it, nothing else…

I'm still working on another story that might be worth my motivation if I can finish character placements/roles, but might not be released soon or at all. I hope that by the time I release the idea isn't taken by another person.

Btw, offer still stands, if someone guesses the next Video Game/Anime crossover fic that I'm doing, I'll draw them a sp00ky boi. I'll give another hint and say that the anime's intro has been memed to hell and the game was released 4 years ago.

 **\-- Will Tsukiyo have a boss fight on his own without help?**

You know, I don't know entirely if he will have a boss fight of his own, but he will have a couple of mini boss fights on his own throughout the story, and this will probably be in both the LN and OVA.

Actually, now that I think about it, yeah, Tsukiyo will get a boss fight if his own. It's gonna be in an OVA with a game crossover, but might be pretty intense if I can write it well…

 **\-- Does Kosuke have other Devil Arms like Dante?**

I mean, Kosuke is running a business where he does make a pretty penny compared to our hobo god Dante, and just like I said in one of the chapters for when Tsukiyo got his Revolver, he can go to a black market supplier and pay him a good amount of money to build him a weapon from his imagination...so...maybe? ;)

 **\-- Does Tsukiyo know that Chris is Eris?**

No not yet, but he will figure it out a lot earlier than Kazuma did in the LN.

 **\-- Does Tsukiyo have feelings for Darkness or is that part on his side needs developing compared to Darkness who has feelings for him?**

You see, this is the major problem I have right now.

I have a good amount of lovey dovey wholesome shit pouring out my brain and flooding me with what to do as a couple, RomCom and Romance animes/manga taught me a lot, but what I'm currently struggling with is the process since the pace has to be not too fast to make it like a Kirito harem, and not drag it along too slowly like 90% of RomCom animes.

As of right now, Tsukiyo has slight feelings for Darkness, there's no doubt about it you've read the chapters, but it's his mentality that always gets in the way. He somewhat blows it off as if it's not much to him since he feels like it's not much to Darkness, but Darkness does genuinely like him, yes he did save her multiple times from situations that could've gone really bad, but there is more for her liking him than those saves.

Just like what I wrote back in chapter 20, she does trust him a little bit more than the rest of the group. I feel as if its because he's more down to earth and sane-r than those four, with a close 2nd to Kazuma.

I still have to develop both of them more and do it at a slightly faster pace since I only have about 5-6 more volumes (which might be able to translate to 60-70 more chapters) until I can make them into an official couple, because if you've read the LN you'd know what happens...

Now this wasn't a question meant for the Q and A, but it's still a question nonetheless:

Guest Account Saru asks:

 **\-- Can you Explain the Faith status?**

When I first introduced the stats for Tsukiyo's abilities, I went to a standard site that explained all the status' and what they meant, most of the general skills on Tsukiyo's card is self explanatory, Strength, HP, MP, Stamina, etc etc.

Faith is a type of skill that doesn't have much impact on any of the other skills, you could make it out to whatever you wanted it to be most of the time, unless you were a Paladin (Spellcaster of sort) or Cleric (Healer) since it would tie in to their deity that you worship.

I've modified it a bit to make it suit Tsukiyo's faith not only in his teammates, but towards his point of view in general (If I'm mistaken in any of these info then I apologise, I read this description off of a Reddit post in DnD)

If Tsukiyo has low faith, or negative faith, his outlook is more negative, if it's more positive then he'll learn to trust his teammates more and not go off by himself as often.

The Faith skill wasn't an addition in Konosuba but I decided to add it in for plot and character development.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

And with that, the Q and A is over, you guys are gonna get chapters 35 and 36 probably on the 22nd, so just keep that in mind.

I might do another Q and A next week if I get anymore questions from people who post more questions.

I would also like to thanks Nakaru Uzumaki for starting to be my editor of sorts. He'll be revising some of the older chapters that were made. Chapter 1 has been remade, but I just told him to start off of chapter 20 or 21 since going back to do the entire story is too much work.

One minor thing, I will finally add chapter titles to the old chapters and new ones, why now? because my ocd will fuck me over if I have unmatching chapter numbers…

Also rip in piece Tumblr, you let all the freaks that you were keeping caged in loose.

You won't be missed...at all...now if we can only get rid of DeviantArt…

PS, congrats God Of War PS4 for winning Game of the Year over Red Dead 2, it won too many awards, and my man Bryan Dechart should've won best actor/performance...


	36. Q and A Response 12-15-18

Hello there all that actually reads this, which is basically 20-25% of the people who bookmarked this story, excluding the last 2 Off Grid chapters which got up to 70 and 170 views like, wow, that's both surprising and ummm….yeah, just surprising in general.

Anyways, onto the questions that were asked within the week.

Note: Just like normal chapters, I will reply to your responses from last week even if they weren't questions.

 **\-- Did I see the DMCV trailer from the Game Awards?**

Now, for those that don't know, the Video Game Awards were last week where they would hand out awards similarly like the Grammys or Oscars to games that released from the beginning of the year until the end. Also it's not only big AAA games that get awarded, there's even awards for games that are for mobile or be single studio dev games.

oh yeah, esports are included, but I didn't really care as much...

In conclusion to the game awards, Red Dead Redemption 2 won a lot of awards (4 awards of the 8 it was nominated) despite being just about a month and a half old from release I think? It won awards over Spiderman PS4, God of War PS4, Detroit: Become Human and much more.

It didn't win Game of the Year thankfully since that was awarded to God of War...but best ongoing game along with Best Multiplayer was awarded to Fortnite...over Rainbow 6, Destiny 2, No Man's Sky, BO4, Monster Hunter World, and Overwatch…like wtf, man why... _*internally hurting*_...I can understand the community behind it, but...why….

If you want to PM me and talk about the game awards go ahead and do so, cause most of it was plain BS, especially the Fortnite, Red Dead 2, and YT-bers awards (which were all Fortnite YT-ber's)

...I'm still pissed that my man Bryan Dechart (Connor From Detroit) didn't win Best Actor, like really REALLY pissed...

But back to the question. Yes I did see the trailer.

I saw it leaked on reddit 8 hours before, I saw its official release on the Game Awards, and again after it finished.

I'm hyped as fuck (so much so that I already preordered the Deluxe Edition of it along with KH3, $160 worth it for 2019), and am so so sure, that V and Vergil are related, based off V's moveset, YT Theories, and screenshots. His Theme is pretty catchy too…

 **\-- Will Tsukiyo finally get to project all his anger he bottled up inside beat the shit out of scumbags or you know punch Kazuma and throw him off a cliff (doesn't have to be a cliff it could be a window)?**

Yes, he will project all of his anger out and go neutral for the moment, but it won't in the way you expect.

Maybe it will be what you expect or maybe it won't, all you need to know is that, it's a pretty big change for Tsukiyo and this will affect him 100%.

...and no he won't throw Kazuma out the window…

 **\-- What are my thoughts on the RWBY series?**

From the very beginning of the series, I didn't watch it. Wasn't even interested in it to begin with since it didn't look interesting to me. Then Monty died.

Of course I sort of knew who Monty was based off the Full Play of RE Revelations, I think, and the occasional mentions of him in the RT animated, but only that much I knew.

I soon watched the Tribute Video that was made and was speechless to an extent...

From what I saw, I saw a man who had a lot of passion for storytelling and put 250% into anything he made his mark on, and it touched me.

So I said to myself, "You know what, I'll give it a try. A man sunk his entire blood, sweat, and tears into a project for it to be viewed, why judge it before watching it?" and so I did, and I really liked it.

Of course, the newer volumes didn't have the Monty feel, but was still good in my eyes.

So I guess I have a pretty good opinion of RWBY in my eyes. I just wish Monty could see this and just hear his opinions, good or bad.

Sorry, for getting a bit too Zen there...sort of lost control of typing…

 **\-- Is Tsukiyo's Devil Trigger exactly like Nero's?**

While it's not exactly like Nero's DT, it's pretty close and I feel the way I made it is sort of an evolved form of it (It's not gonna turn into Majin Form or Nelo Angelo, too op for Tsukiyo)

Instead of having it be a stand from JoJo, it slowly nurtured itself from Tsukiyo leveling up from it being a stand, like in the original game, to having it have its own soul and personality in the form of Vergil, to actually giving it a physical body to move around of its own volition.

In future Chapters, Vergil will still be there with Tsukiyo, guiding him with advice and criticisms, but if he really needs to, he could Summon Vergil to fight with him or train against him.

As long as Tsukiyo levels up, Vergil will too, but maybe one day he might be too powerful...I mean, he is Vergil After all…

Guest Account Zack asks: Also God of War being the Game of the Year is awesome. I loved the appearance of the World Serpent. **Also what did you think of Fate Grand Orders portrayal of the Norse based Servant and Surtur?**

Imma be real with you here, chief...I never watched Fate, as in any of the Fate Anime's…

Why? I cause I already have a list and a half worth of anime I still need to watch or catch up on...it's not easy, being weeby…(especially when there is a new season of Fate every new anime season...)

I've got almost little to no knowledge on Norse Mythology either, but I do have a brief crash course of some Greek that I learned from School, movies, and videogames, like their names and simplified background but other than that...nada, nothing, empty…

If you want to educate me some, go ahead and PM me…

Also, if you were wondering If I got the Atreaus/Loki name and secret mural that Kratos saw from the end of God of War, I guess I could say that I seen some people comment what it meant and sort of understand but not really, I'm not educated enough to understand Ragnarok and the supposed end of the world…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

And that's the end of the 2nd Q and A even though there wasn't as much questions as last week. I will be back to posting regular chapters next week with 35 and (Maybe) 36 with double chapter updates since finals are almost done for me.

I'd like to thank those who participated, and hoped that it answered the questions that were either yours or similar to what you wanted to ask. Maybe I'll do another Q and A in the summer, if my series is still lasting, if not, then you can always ask me at any time.

P.S: make sure to dislike YT Rewind 2018...

In response to DxHologram: Yeah, time really is a very very valuable thing that we all have as we continue to live, most spend in in leisure while most are hard at work, then there's me, a degenerate who wastes time like no tomorrow from being a Max Prestige Procrastinator.

It's ok to admit you lost interest in SAO, I did too after episode 3 but still watched it for completing the series….it was not worth it, especially after all the seasons and movies.

Even right now I'm watching Alicization, while it's ok (and while Kirito still has 80% plot armour and Jesus-kun abilities) I'm rooting for Eugeo, who I hope he doesn't become Kirito 2.0…

If I made Tsukiyo be a Kirito clone in this series...I would've deleted everything I had typed down before even publishing it and not start this story at all. I'd just give up on the story and go on with my life. That's why I always want some kind of drawback to an ability, skill, or weapon that Tsukiyo obtains in the story, just to have it usable with the risk factor added in to balance things out.

Red Queen Exceed? Really spammable with damage boost, but can cause self burn that will last up to an hour at the least…

Devil Trigger? Based off mana and just like in game, always forgotten 90% of the time until you lose to a boss a lot of times.

Blue Rose? weak damage in game to demons and monsters with long reload times (but high damage to humans because of plot purposes)

It's gotta be consistent and balanced. A character who is perfect in all areas is a horrible character, if it's been decided half assed.

A good example of a good op character is Lord Grim or Ye Xiu from King's Avatar, it has an anime which I recommend.

In response to Guest Account Jenson: Thanks for the thoughts on my writing so far, and Just like I told DxHologram, A perfect character is horrible if done with half assed decisions.

I'd rather have my character die a thousand times and get stronger from his mistakes rather than Kirito-fy it and use Bullshit anime logic. Besides, for Tsukiyo's more human character, I'm just writing down what a normal person would probably think mixed in with some anime. (that along with memes that I've been itching to add in for comedy)

It wasn't even the fact that they were friends that made Tsukiyo stay, it was the fact that he knew that they would die if he didn't try to help them (in this Konosuba timeline at least), so he was tied in without much consideration of his own opinion.

Kazuma can sort of defend himself but he lacks defence and skills always relying on steal or drain, Megumin is a literal glass cannon in which she can be considered the highest liability on the team, Darkness can't hit/swing her sword worth shit, the ground included, and Aqua is most useless of all from her fucking personality of being so goddamn arrogant and entitled (oh boy could she be a millenial??? just kidding, don't have a cow man. I throw shade to whoever whenever, I give no fucks)

Kazuma is the brains, sometimes, Darkness is the shield, the shield only, Aqua I guess is the….enchanted armour/mindset of not being harmed by status'? (gotta break out OG minecraft terminology) Megumin is the 1 trick pony Ace, and Tsukiyo himself is the sword, with Vergil being his whetstone to sharpen him when he gets dull and hidden blade when situations get dire.

Believe me, you and me have the same opinion of Aqua...

hehehehehe... _Scum_

 _Vergil reference*_


	37. Blood (Off Grid Finale)

**Dead or Alive**

 _Tsukiyo Nakano_

 _Approx age: 19_

 _Bounty for having ties with the Demon Lord_

 _Last seen: Axel Town_

 _Bounty: A Million Eris presented by the Capitol._

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You know, at this point, I should've of expected to see this at one point. I disappeared while a trial was in progress and in turn, I sort of reaped what I sowed.

But I just can't help being shocked for some reason…

I started to step back as quietly as possible to make sure I wouldn't get noticed until someone whispered out to me, "Hey Tsukiyo!"

I looked to the right of me where the Elder was as she whispered towards me in a nearby alleyway, motioning me to come to her.

I quickly and quietly came over to her where she was.

"Have you seen those posters?" I asked her, she shook her head and said in a sad tone, "It's a shame that someone like you has to be put in this kind of situation…"

"Come" She said as she walk deeper into the alleyway, "We'll take a shortcut to my office, we must hurry though."

I followed after her into the alleyway where we walked through a small maze of trash and old closed down stores.

After another 5 minutes of walking, I had to ask, "Why are you helping me so much? You and I both know that the capitol is gonna go through each village to check everywhere for me, and since this village is not entirely friendly towards them, they're gonna make it worse for you guys…"

"If you're that concerned about the village, then don't be. I'm doing this of my own volition and would never give someone up just because of a rigged trial and a couple of big wigged people of the capitol." The Elder said as she continued to walk without giving a second thought to what she was saying or doing for me.

"I've got a entrance way in my office that leads to a path to a nearby mountain. I've been using it for decades to hide away my people when the capitol get too aggressive. They haven't found it yet so you should be able to escape there…" She said as we finally made it to the office where a large crowd was waiting in front of the house.

"So fast…" The elder murmured to herself as she started to think for herself

Well it's no surprise that they'd want me gone so fast. I am part demon…

It looked like Meryl was in front of the mob trying to calm things down and make people get away from the house.

The elder soon spoke up from her silence, "Ok slight change of plans. I'm going to distract the mob away from my house, but you gotta sneak in fast and make it to my office. My library holds the hidden passage behind it, just take out the thirteenth book out along with the seventh and it'll open up. If this plan is successful, I thank you for spending some time in this village and hope you can come back when the people are a little bit more accepting..." The Elder said as she turned towards me as she smiled warmly.

"I'll be sure to come back sometime if I can. Just gotta wait out the storm and hope that everything blows over." I replied back as tried to give a warm smile back, it'd probably be best for me to stay away from this village if I don't want to give it more troubles…

"I'm going to go distract them now, sneak in when the opportunity presents itself, good luck Tsukiyo." The Elder said as she started to walk over to the mob.

"Got it." I said as I got ready to sneak my way into the house as the Elder made her way towards the mob and tried to move them away from the doorway with Meryl's help.

In a matter of 5-10 minutes the crowd started to dissipate as they moved away from the doorway.

I waited another 15 minutes before making my move and slowly sneaking my way behind the mob and into the house.

As the crowd moved away from the doorway, I moved closer and closer to the entrance as I moved low and slow.

I was halfway there when the crowd continued to move away and be distracted from the elder, up until a cart made its way up front and soon right next to the Elder that was distracting the mob.

When the cart stopped 4 figures climbed out of the carriage and confronted the Elder. Those 4 figures were the 3 capitol guards that were here when I first got here and a much bigger and beefier guard that wielded a heavy mace/axe combo weapon.

One of the guards spoke up since everything had gone silent, "Hello there Elder, no need to explain why we're here, where's our cut?" He asked as he got up close to the Elder.

"Can you gentlemen please hold on for a minute, I'll promise to get your cut later, I need to deal with this situation first…" The Elder said as she tried to stall for more time, I really needed to get out of the way before I was caught.

I continued to move towards the door slowly as the Elder and Guard continued their conversation, "Really now?" The guard said, "Well that seems a bit tedious, but I don't think waiting a couple of minutes seems that bad..but oh! Considering that we were the ones to put up the posters, I've been meaning to ask...where is that "unique" boy that tried to defy us a couple of weeks ago? I've heard that there's a special reward for him if caught dead or alive."

The Elder stood her ground as she replied to the guard right in front of her, "I'm sorry, but that boy has left this morning, so I'm sorry to say this but you just missed him." She said sternly as she wasn't going to falter towards the guards pressure.

"Where is he heading?" The guard said as his attitude grew worse and bitter.

"I don't know, he never told me or any of us. Maybe you should head to Axel Town, he might be there if you looked hard enough…" The elder replied

"Don't sass us woman! Tell me where he's heading!" the guard said as he roughly grabbed the Elders arm and forcefully tried to get her to tell him.

"Hey, Leave her alone!" "That's our Elder you're grabbing you jackass!" "Elder, please step away and left us handle it!" The crowd that was originally possibly going after me started to corner the 4 guards as shouts and swears were thrown around.

I used this opportunity to quicken my pace and make it to the doorway. Just as I was about to open the door, I soon heard shouts of fear and pain.

When I looked back I saw that the four guards that were initially getting cornered were started to use blunt weapons that they had like lightweight clubs and shields and started to swing towards the crowd wacking anything in sight, whether it be man, women, or child.

People where in the ground and were starting to hold their heads, arms, legs or eyes. It was a massacre in the works.

"HEY, LET GO OF ME, ELDER! HELP!" A shout was heard, when I looked back and saw what was happening, I saw Meryl struggling to break the grip of the 2 guards as they tried to hold her down and tie her up.

"If you're gonna make us go through this much trouble for some chump change and that fucking kid we should at least get some kind of compensation for all the wait shouldn't we guys!?" One of the guards yelled out.

"LET GO OF HER YOU BASTARDS!" The Elder shouted as she tried to shoved them out the way only to get her faced bashed in by a club.

I was beyond pissed from what was happening to the Elder, Meryl, and the other villagers that were beaten by the guards.

"Hey Assholes!" I said as I ran up to the guards and used the Devil Bringer to summon the bigger version of my arm and punch the guards out of the way.

Both of the guards that were holding Meryl down were launched about 5-6 feet in front of me as the other guard and Guard brute faced me and pulled out their weapons, "Well, well, well, If it ain't the demon! Since you're on a 1 million Eris bounty, this is gonna be exciting killing you as I rake in all the cash!"

"Elder! Can you stand?" I said as I pulled out my Red Queen and shielded both the Elder and Meryl.

"I'm...I'm fine. What about Meryl?" She said as she held her right eye in pain as blood started to drip down.

"I don't know if she's hurt, but just get her out of here. Things aren't gonna get pretty in the next 5 minutes…" I said as revved my sword to level 1, something I hadn't done in some time.

By the time the Elder got up and tried to help up Meryl, I was instantly attack by the brute as he tried to swing its axe/mace towards me.

Since it was a very heavy weapon even in the hands of a brute, it was easy enough to dodge, but I had to dodge again and again as the other 3 guards were charging at me shorts swords and shields in hand, swinging it at me as a group.

Each swing after swing they made never gave me much of a chance to retaliate back as each attempt was always blocked by the brutes axe/mace.

By the time an opening was made, I managed to grab one of the guards arm and throw them across the square that we were fighting at.

I was caught off guard as the brute tried to go for a very heavy vertical slash with its axe/mace and split me in too, I managed to dodge it but just barely.

Even though these guys are nowhere near Vergil's level, they're still a pretty tough opponent to fight, especially in a 4 v 1.

The two other lesser guards that were right next to the brute started to circle around me including the one that I threw earlier.

My breath was irregular as they continued to circle around. I steaded my breath and concentrated hard to make myself focus.

Everything I saw from here on out was almost in a slow motion:

The brute tried to do another vertical slash while the guards used their shields to push me towards it and block me off.

I pulled my body slightly towards the right and narrowly avoid the axe towards the left and used my demon arm to punch the gut of the brute with as much force as I could muster and grabbed his mace/axe for myself to use the mace to push back the guards that were trying to block me off.

Each swing that I made with the mace bounced off the shield of each of the guards as they started to get pushed back.

Before I could try and push the guards back, I turned behind me where the brute was and swung the mace towards his stomach push him back and knocking him down in the process.

I threw the mace towards the ground and did a horizontal slash towards the other guards pushing them back further with the help of the exceed function.

It was just a regular sword fight at this point since the guards started to rush towards me and swing their short sword at me all at the same time.

I managed to dodge most of the slashes for the most part while using the Red Queen at times to deflect them if they got too close.

The guards were tiring themselves out as their sword pattern and swing speed was starting to get slower and sloppier.

This was my chance to retaliate hard on them.

I took advantage of their tiredness and started to go with some Close Quarter Combat.

Getting close to them I was able to disarm 2 of the guards and take out their short sword and use my demon arm to grab their shield and launch them across the square against a brick store one by one.

It was just me and the other guard right now, and based off his body structure, it was probably the same one that knocked me in the ground and pinned me with his feet 2 weeks ago.

"You really think you're hot shit, do ya' Kid?" The guard said as he adjusted his stance and got closer to me with his defense higher than normal.

"No, I don't. And if you want, you can always walk away from this fight, no need to get your ass handed to you" I replied back as I revved my Sword to Level 1 again.

The guard tried to get closer to me as we spoke and went for a cheeky sneak attack as he rushed me with his sword in his hand trying to go for an impaling stab as he ran towards me.

I sidestepped him to the right making him miss by a foot and grabbed his head with my demon forcefully grabbing the back of his helmet and slamming it to the ground face first.

I stepped back from what was going in and took a couple of deep breaths as I took in what happened.

I was able to hold my own for the first time by myself…

I couldn't help but smile to myself seeing how proud I was not dying after a fight.

It was at this time that people were starting to come out from where they were hiding and see what happened.

The three guards that were beating them were now on the ground knocked out and tired from a demon who outsmarted and outlasted them.

People started to file out form where they came from and walk up to where I was, the Elder and Meryl came too as the Elder got an eyepatch for her right eye.

I walked up to the Elder and asked her if she was ok, she told me that she won't be able to see out of her right eye for a couple of weeks, it made me frustrated since I wasn't able to do anything quick enough since I was just watching everything unfold.

The Elder put her hand in my shoulder, "Don't beat yourself too much over something as little as this. I've been the elder of this village for more than 500 years, there have been worse situations that happened before..." She said as she gave me a reassuring smile.

"Come with me, I think you can still make it through the passage pass my library." She said as she walked over to her house.

Meryl shyly walked up to me and tugged at my sleeve, "...Thanks…" She murmured as she looked away from embarrassment.

"Hey, it's no problem. I'm just glad the people here are relatively safe…" I replied, I tried to look her in the eye, but she always moved her face away and not look at me face to face.

"Hey watch out!" one of the spectators cried out.

I turned around quickly to see what was happening and saw the guard that I forcefully face planted pull out some throwing knifes.

He threw them towards me with enough force to deal some damage if hit by one.

I just barely managed to block one of them with my demon arm as it got impaled in it, but there was a slight gasp right next to me that sounded surprised.

When I looked towards the side where the other knife landed, I saw that it hit the Elder dead center in her right eye.

She collapsed onto the ground in a slow fashion.

Everyone except for the guard were shocked.

The villagers ran up to the Elder to try and tend to her as me and Meryl stood by them motionless.

Meryl fell onto her knees without sound but with audible choked sobs as she sat there in place.

The guard who threw the knives spoke up from the commotion, "You really...Really shouldn't have gone up against us. This is just the many, many possibilities that can happen if you don't comply with us." He said in a gruff voice as a chunk of metal fell off his helmet exposing his face.

"Now I'll ask this once and once only! When we come back here from getting our bounty, what will you present--!" He stopped talking as a loud bang was heard.

I wasn't entirely sure what came over me at that moment, rage, hate, frustration, sorrow or just plain killing intent. What I do know is that I did kill someone.

As the loud gunshot echoed within the forest, it brought everyone's attention to me as my Devil Trigger went off and showed itself in full glory.

The guards and brute that were knocked out shot up from the startling sound and saw what happened, "C-Captain! What did you do to him you bastard! He had a wife and kid!" One of them shouted as they ran up to his lifeless body.

"Call in backup! We need a squad to take this one o--!" Another one tried to say, but was also silenced by another gunshot.

At this moment my instincts took over, if backup was called there'd be more of them and this situation will get even worse!

The guard that was next to the captains body was now infront of him as he drew his sword and shield. The Brute behind him was chanting something with runes appearing on the ground on front of him.

I revved my sword up to level 3 and started to run towards the guard who was shaking in fear as he saw me on DT form.

"You bastard! I knew you were a monster on the inside!" He said as he tried to go for a couple of weak slashes at me to keep me at bay, but I dodged all of them easily and split the man in two with a horizontal slash.

The brute was next as I rushed towards him. Compared to the other guards who weren't ready and tried to fend me off but failed, the Brute was ready with his mace ready to strike the moment I got close to him.

I slowly walked up to him with my sword in hand as he watched me, but before he even knew it I leaped high into the air and made a heavy downwards slash with the exceed function still intact which broke the mace grip in to.

Before the Brute could recover and take in what just happened, I took my sword and did continuous downward slashes towards his left shoulder to bring him down until I cut through his armour and mutilate his body.

It seems that whatever the Brute was chanting was finished as a small fireball shot up in the air and exploded in a bright flash, I guess it could be considered a flare of this time.

I didn't want to admit it at the time, but killing the men that killed the Elder...just felt so...refreshing…

As I vented out almost all of my anger at those men who were just assholes at the time taking what others needed, killing them made me feel as if this kind was justifiable….right?

By the time the adrenaline in my blood and Devil trigger started to go away, my feeling of enjoyment from killing the guards was replaced by immense fatigue, fear, and emotional distress.

I couldn't tell what was going on in my mind anymore, whether I was in shock from killing 4 guards from the capitol, being refreshed from being released of my anger or just empty inside...I guess I was just a mess at that time...

A couple of the villagers started to murmur to themselves, something about the Capitol reinforcements…

I guess was too late in...killing...the brute...He's already sent a request for reinforcements so I might actually die for real this time.

There's a couple of choices that I choose right now, turn myself in for execution and save whatever good karma I have left, fight 'til I die, or just run away and become an outlaw…

Best case scenario for me would be just live my life as an outlaw.

With news coming out saying that I'm a murderer will definitely make "ties" with the Demon Lord a lot more believable, so much for being optimistic in wanting a better life.

I guess living life as a demon won't change the fact of how people will see me now…

At this point, being mad at the fact of getting screwed over by my party is miles and miles behind of what's going on right now.

I snapped myself out of my mood for a second to come back to reality as I remembered the Elder.

Now that she's dead, it's all up to Meryl to guide them…

I look back and saw them stare back, but instead of hatred and resentment they showed me before the incident it was panic and fear, like if I moved one inch from where I stood at they'd be trampling over themselves just to get away from me.

I guess I can't blame them for what they feel, I'd do the same thing I'd seen 4 guards from the capitol get killed easily from unknown weapons and demon powers.

If only I could revive the Elder and help me convince them of who I am and what I'm not, but sadly that's too late, I can't revive people like Aqua can--

It then hit me, we can still save her!

I ran up to Meryl who was still on the ground motionless and sobbing, "Meryl!" I said as I tried to make her come to her senses, "Meryl listen to me, I know a person who can revive the Elder, she can still be revived!" I said trying to make her understand.

She slowly turned her head towards me as her eyes widened and started to listen, "Tell me, tell me who can revive the Elder, Please! We can't live without her!" She said as she desperately clinged onto my arm.

I then told her about Aqua, about a person in my party who could revive even the dead if she wanted to, despite breaking the rules.

"You guys need to head to Axel Town. There's a mansion in the northwest edge where my party lives at, go take the secret tunnel or path behind the bookcase inside the Elders study to get there, pull out books 7 and 13. Please hurry, tell them that I sent you and to revive the Elder!" I said as I was sporadically giving instructions.

Meryl nodded as she wiped her tears away and told the plan to the villagers.

Of course coming from me, the Villagers didn't want to believe in what I told them but because everyone is in a dire situation, they had no choice but to head there.

Before Meryl left with everyone who was waiting outside the Elders house, I told her to evacuate everyone who lived here to make sure not to get caught in the crossfire of what was about to happen.

Not wanting to waste and time and know what was about to happen, Meryl listened and told some of the other villagers the same thing, and a group of 10 of them split up within the village to gather everyone and leave before things got bad.

Within a half an hour, everyone was gathered up inside or outside the Elders house to escape the bloodshed of what's about to happen.

Before Meryl would leave completely and guide the villagers to Axel, I gave Meryl one last message to tell my party or mainly one person, "Make sure to tell someone named 'Darkness' I'm sorry…" She gave a glance of sadness before accepting my request and leaving.

There were some familiar faces in the crowd and some that didn't bother looking at me standing at the side, but they all had the same mindset of looking at me as a killer, and there was no changing that.

Everyone left within 20 minutes and soon...I was all alone…

I stood in the square and waited for the inevitable for what seemed to be hours, just emotionless and blank…

Movement was soon heard within the forest as guys in similar armour from the guards before started to appear in front of me.

I tried to ready my sword and fight them, but for some reason my sword just felt unnaturally heavy. I couldn't lift or swing it with an ounce of force, it was just so heavy to the point where my hands shook just trying to hold it up...and I've never felt this weak, emotionally, in my life...

One of the tallest guards came up to me and observed my posture for a while, he soon asked me, "Are you gonna fight us? Kill us like the ones before?" His voice was deep, raspy, and monotone, as if he's already seen and done enough.

I just shrugged my shoulders and stood there with my hands shaking not wanting to do anything but give up, "I don't know…"

The guard in front of me didn't have his sword and shield up, he didn't have his guard up, he didn't even try to fight me. In a sense, it was like he wanted to sympathise with me.

He just turned away from me and pointed at the iron carriage the other brought, "Just get in, we'll make sure your death is off the record and quick. Just make sure not to do this stuff in the next life, yeah?" He said as he guided me to the cage.

As much as I wanted to fight back and not listen to the guy, my body just wouldn't listen to me and did exactly what I was told by the guard.

No matter how hard I tried to move away, it was all wasted effort as I continued to get to the cage without any resistance...

I hopped in the cage without much trouble and started to head towards the capitol to get killed without the masses knowing…

It's really gonna end this way isn't it? All my efforts just to get stronger and live a better life all down the drain since I killed 4 guys…

...I really blew my second chance...

It felt like forever getting towards the capitol.

All I did in that cage was just nothing but sitting at the same spot, not contemplating what to do next, not thinking about how to apologise to those I've wronged, not even thinking about my last words, I just...sat there…

Soon the carriage made a abrupt halt. I didn't bother looking at what stopped us, and just kept to myself.

"Hey little boy, are you alright?" One of the guards asked as he hopped off the carriage and walked to what seemed like a little boy.

"Are you lost or something? You really shouldn't be out in a place like...wait..what's with your--" A loud explosion was heard as the guard blew up where he stood.

The explosion snapped me out of my trance and forced me to look around, what I saw was a small chibi-like figure of a man in a suit and black and white mask slowly coming towards us, and it wasn't alone.

We were getting swarmed by them from all sides.

"W-were surrounded! Damn it, is this your fault you brat!?" One of the guards yelled at me as they tried to fight back the literal jihad bombers

"I have no clue about these things, don't look at me!" I shouted back

The little chibi figures started to latch onto the guards as they glowed a bit before exploding.

One by one, guards were exploding and the chibi figures started to come after me in the cage after being the last one left alive.

One of the worst mistakes that I made at that time was shooting them because when I did, it immediately exploded causing a chain reaction of explosions outside my cage blowing up the entire carriage and sending it to multiple places.

As for me, the cage exploded in the process leaving me near death from being near multiple bombs and getting caught into it. I was sent flying into the forest 20 feet away from the main road where all the explosions happened.

I passed out from all that happened in a small pool of blood not knowing what had happened and why, but left in more pain and questions...

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

(And that Ladies and Gentlemen, is the finale of the Off Grid chapters. Sorry for posting this very late at night, I will be starting back up in the light novel with the transition that I set up. Sadly, I can't post 36 yet because it's only one quarter done, why it's a quarter done is because Behemoth finally came out in Monster Hunter World for PC and..uh...he's a really big son a bitch to deal with, sadly me and my friends don't have a party of 4 yet to deal with him properly...

...Also, there is one user I'd like to call out, but in a good way, not the bad way...

 **Lil'Manuel.G** , I want to know what you think, since what you said in the beginning-ish of the Off-Grid chapters got me interested on what your opinion of the story is after getting a serious attempt of an off the chart story/series. I'm interested in your opinions along with the others that read this.

Aside from that, I'll respond to the questions and reviews people left me last week.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy late Chinese New year, happy whatever the fuck you celebrate during next week or last week I'm really tired right now...

Questions from Reviewers:

 **Gen2324**

 _-Will there be any enemies that are based on Devil May Cry like its mini boss' and Bosses?_

Yes there will. I'm not done adding DMC (both Demons, bosses, weapons, and OC) into Konosuba, I'm just getting started...

 **(Guest) Perry**

 _-Is there like a chance where Tsukiyo can do whatever he can to not get people's ire of demons placed on him? Or is that forever going to stay?_

That's forever gonna stay sadly, it won't be shown as much in Axel town since the town sort of owes him and his party after they saved the town (and they owe about 40 mil.), but literally everywhere else will be like that because people hate demons with or without context.

 **(Guest) Yov**

 _-How strong are Tsukiyo strikes with or without DT? And how much can he lift with or without DT? And how fast is his travel speed?_

From a Scale of 1 (babyshit weak) to 100 (Kirito because of plot), I say that without DT his damage is currently at 65-75. Now this doesn't mean literally at 65-75 dmg, but it's just for reference because in DMC4, the Red Queen is able to hurt armoured demons all the same as regular demons.

With DT, because it acts like a strength boost with regenerative abilities, it bumps it up to 85-90. Because the Red queen has the Exceed function, when its in use its best to assume that the damaged is bumped up by 3 for Rev 1, 4 for Rev 2, and 5 for Rev 3.

He can lift up to 110 lbs with his Demon arm (as of right now) and a solid 160 with both, DT if used to lift things, could possibly bump up his 160 limit to 240.

I have no clue for travel speed since I'm not as informative in DnD mechanics aside from basic stats and abilities. I'll just say that his travel speed is based off his stamina, because he had many jobs before dying, he has pretty good stamina reservation and usage.

If there is anything else you need to know, refer back to chapter 34 where his latest skills are posted or ask me more questions.

Review from DxHologram on 12/16: I think the action is what kept SAO interesting, but even that had its limits. It was done ok in the anime, never read the manga or LN, but felt good in the Movie since it deflated his abilities since it relied more on actual physical strength. and seeing Kirito flop on the ground without his Jesus-kun powers made it feel so much better, sadly they botched the ending so, so, so badly with over the top super fast paced boss fight with fanserviced (the non sexual kind) character designs calling back to the previous seasons as if that movie was the last SAO movie/anime, oh how I could wish...Save yourself 5 minutes and don't look it up, it sucks.

Review from Gen2324 on 12/16: The trailer for V really does look good and I really want to play as him, the only thing I'm troubled by is the fact that, in the latest trailer, V was about to stab Dante with the Sparada. I know that Dante getting stabbed in essentially a tradition in DMC games, but this looked a little bit personal in V's perspective, especially when he said, "If only you never existed…" Yikes...Also, I cannot for the life of me, take V seriously when he does his white hair snap trick, he just looks so damn sassy, it cracks me up! I don't have much to say on RWBY other than, I'll just enjoy what's been animated, and if it disappoints me...then so be it.

Review from Guest Account Saru on 12/16: Although Tsukiyo can fight on his own in the front lines, he's not Vergil. He will still have screw ups and have things he can't do on his own, he can't heal himself unless he carries potions, he can't take hits well since he has no armour, he on has DT, the Blue Rose, Red Queen and the Devil Bringer in his disposal and can only deal with 2-4 enemies on his own. He can hold his own, but he's definitely no One Man Army (Btw, fuck that perk back in MW2, fucking ACR/noobtube bullshit…) Holy Magic only works when he's in DT form, but other than that, he's just a normal human with a demon arm and high defense. I'm not sure if you've read the LN, but Kazuma can definitely be useful and really, really efficient if he wanted to, but sadly can't because of his party. He is a perverted Hikineet, but he's a damn good thief and slight brawler. At this point a fucking toad could be better than Aqua…


	38. A Very Awkward Reunion

I started to hear voices as I was coming through.

"Ts…..o"

Who was it that I was hearing? I can't make out the sound….

"H..y...Tsuk….yo" The voice reached out again.

Are they...calling out to me?

"Tsukiyo...Wake up!" The voice sounded a bit more clearer and a bit harsher, it sounded like…

As I began to slowly open my eyes from regaining some of my strength I was met with cold light blue eyes looking down on me intimidatingly...

"Good, you're not dead." Vergil said as I looked up at him, and he wasn't alone…

Right next to him I saw my party, Sena, and a couple of adventurers that I recognised from Axel.

As I looked around from where I was lying down at, it looked like we were right on the middle of the woods with a small campfire going on to the side since I saw no trace of a road with an exploded cart or exploded limbs. The only thing that didn't match the scenario in this snowy forest is the small trail of blood that was leading out from my body into a random direction of the forest.

It was a no brainer to assume that it was already nighttime from the dark sky and clouds that flown ahead as I stared at the sky, it might even be midnight...

Since it was just about the afternoon going into evening time when I last got knocked out, I guess it was safe to say that at least 7-9 hours had passed by then…

I tried to get from from where I was lying down at only to have an immense amount of pain come from the lower side of my stomach.

"Don't bother getting up, you've already lost a lot of blood from a piece of metal bar getting lodged in your stomach. It's better to stay where you are." He said as he stood up, "I'll let you and your team talk for the moment, I'm gonna find out the reason for those abominations that blew us up."

Vergil then walked off towards Sena and the other adventurers that were talking about what was going on.

All five of us sat there in an awkward silence.

We sat there for a solid 5 minutes before Kazuma sort of broke the ice, "So...I see you haven't changed much in those 2 weeks...you know with the...uh..almost dying thing…" He said in a dry-ish tone trying not to make things much more awkward.

Man he really needs to learn how to socialize with other people properly…

Kazuma cleared his throat as he continued with the awkward one sided conversation, "So...I guess that was Vergil huh?...I mean he did sound very experienced in combat and demon hunting but he's not exactly what I imagined him to look like, r-right guys?" Kazuma said as we all continued to stay silent.

He started to get fed up and vent out with, "Ok I get it! This is an awkward situation where we haven't seen Tsukiyo in two weeks from all the stuff that we said and did, but at least say something dammit! We've already got dragged out because of Aqua and her stupid logic, so I'd rather not have to deal with this stupid conversation if we're all gonna stay silent! OK!?"

"Hey! I told you already, It wasn't my fault! Why am I always being blamed?!" Aqua said as she complained

The rest of us stayed silent as Aqua tried to not to be the victim, and I finally said something just to get Kazuma to stop talking, "You really suck at trying to socialize…" I said as I was still lying down.

"I don't want to hear that from someone who is almost died again from an explosion…" Kazuma said as he tried to act cool.

"But aside from that," Kazuma continued, "I guess I would like to apologise…you know, for sort of causing all this to happen to you...and have you take all the blame….and abandoning you…I know it wasn't the best idea at the time, but nd you have the absolute right to be mad at us. But just know that I'm sorry, for real." Kazuma said as he, for once in his life I could assume, tried to suck up his pride (or his nonexistent one at this point) as a man, and properly apologised.

"So...are we good?" Kazuma said as he sounded a but hopeful.

"I'll think about it…" I replied as I turned away from his face

"Aw what the fuck! If you're gonna reply like that, then maybe I should take back what I said ya prick!" Kazuma said in a whiny tone as he turned his face away from me.

I was able to hear him mumble something under his breath before he stopped talking, "...it's still good to see you alive…" He said this in Japanese just for me to understand.

Kazum then smacked the back of Aqua's and Megumin's head telling them, "Come on, you apologise too, you're also part of his problem too abandoning him and such…"

Megumin was the first to apologise, "Tsukiyo I'm sorry for being a bad friend and abandoning you when you needed help the most. Even though you sort of did that to me and Kazuma when I first met you, but I guess the outcome and situation is too different to compare to at this time...so I'm sorry."

Ok, close enough effort and she is sort of right but can't really compare it to that time.

"Sure, why not." I said as it was starting to hurt to breath. A couple of seconds after the pain came back, I was starting to cough slightly violently, it wasn't as violent as smokers lung but it was enough to spit up some blood to the side.

"Hey Tsukiyo calm down!" Kazuma said as he started to get worried, "Aqua heal him, he's not fully healed!" He said trying to get me to stop coughing.

"Why should I heal him anyways!? He wasn't grateful for my services back in the destroyer when I cared for him and all those times I healed him when he nearly got himself killed including now! Why should I heal him now, huh?!" Aqua complained as she pouted looking away from me.

"Aqua just heal him." Darkness finally said in a stern voice from staying silent for so long.

Aqua stopped her pouting for now and healed me while I was still coughing, after a couple of minutes of her healing me I finally stopped.

I was able to breath and talk for the moment without being in pain, "Thanks for that Darkness." I said as I turned to her to thank her.

"Sure..." She said monotonically as she looked away from me but not from embarrassment, but more of...resentment…?

Kazuma and Aqua looked at each other while having some kind of look of slight confusion and concern.

After seeing us look a bit confused from what she said and how she said it, Darkness stood up and said that she's be back.

I asked Kazuma a question now that Darkness was out of earshot, "Tell me, what happened to Darkness the day I left? I mean what happened after I Knocked her out…"

Kazuma looked surprised when I told you that, "What? So it was you that knocked her out cold? Yikes...uh, you screwed up...really badly…" Kazuma said as he sounded more hesitant towards the end.

"Tell me what happened…" I told him.

All three of them looked at each other with unconformable gazes before turning to Kazuma to tell me.

He looked very uncomfortable as he started to tell me what happened, "Well…"

About an hour or two after I left Darkness in her bedroom knocked out, she finally woke back up and went on a mission to look for me. She searched everywhere and asked literally everyone who had some kind of connection to me within Axel and didn't stop to eat or rest until she found me or found where I went.

She finally stopped her search after 6 hours of convincing from Kazuma and co. saying that I was gone she rejected the idea for an hour before finally understanding the idea that I had left and will be back when I was ready or if I would ever come back at all. After she was fully convinced that I was no longer in Axel, she broke down crying in the middle of the street.

For the first week after I left, she was emotionally unstable and would just break down at random times during the day. Each day after the last made her breakdowns even worse to the point of not even coming out of her room. After she finally came out of room with a new mindset and a lot of moral help from Aqua and Megumin, she turned all of her sorrow and sadness and turned it into hate and resentment.

For the second week, she tried to keep herself from thinking about me at all. She broke down a couple of times out of anger when going on missions but she was somewhat able to control it when it got too out of control.

Yesterday when they got back from a mission, they noticed all of the posters in Axel showing me wanted dead or alive. She seemed to have just blew it off and just ignore the poster all together when they were in public, but when they got back in the mansion, she blew a fuse and damn near broke her dresser from one punch out of frustration as strong emotions rushed in her head and as of right now is just resenting me.

They were fearful of her when they got a mission this evening accusing me of being a demon lord minion when they heard knews of a weird monsters mysteriously popping up from a dungeon we investigated some time ago.

Of course they defended me from being a Demon lord minion and didn't accept the quest if it meant accepting that I was guilty, but Darkness spoke up and accepted the quest out of anger and just wanted to do something to get the thought of me out of her head.

It took them an hour and a half to head towards the mountain where the dungeon was at until they saw the blown up carriage area, the exploded limbs, and me bleeding out with Vergil trying to perform outdoors survival surgery on my lower stomach.

Shocked, confused, and joy filled the three of them as they ran towards me and finally met Vergil face to face. Notice how I said three, Darkness wasn't as joyous to see me in such a state as she went off on her own somewhere to do something.

After a very, very heated heat "discussion" of turning me in or proving my innocence, they finally came to the conclusion of dealing with the situation at hand first before deciding what to do next.

Aqua tried to heal me, but had to cut it short as they were starting to get completely swarmed of those chibi jihadis.

About 6-7 hours later we are here…

Kazuma would've continued with what he would try to do to try and patch things up with Darkness but I told him just to leave me by myself for a moment, him, Aqua, and Megumin…

As they got up and left me by myself, left with my own frustration and anger of what I did.

….This is all my fault, everything...Darkness was the major victim to this all while I was away just trying to get rid of this hate…

I really fucking hate myself just from doing this, it shows how much of a shitty person I am.

I slammed my fist into the tree stump next to me in anger as I tried a second time to sit upright after lying down for some time, even though I still felt some pain from trying to overdo myself, I fought through it with more anger to spare.

I finally sat upright and leaned myself against a nearby tree.

I still held my lower stomach in pain as I rested for a couple of minutes before attempting to stand up on my own.

As I held onto my wound with my right arm and held onto the tree as a crutch with my right, I was slowly getting back up on my own to feet.

The pain on my wound doubled as I tried to stand back up, of course since Kazuma and co. were still nearby, so when they saw me trying to push myself and stand up they tried to stop me from overdoing it.

"Hey you should be getting some rest, don't over do it!" Kazuma said as he tried go stop me by trying to get me to lay down.

I slapped his hand away, "I don't think I care what happens to me a this point, just let me-" I was cut off as I was decked in the face by the hilt of the Yamato that Vergil held in his hand causing me to get back down on the ground.

"I couldn't care less of what you think, but right now you're just being reckless. Either calm your shit or I'll have to get physical and put you down myself. Brat, help him up and follow us, we'll be heading out deeper into the forest where the dungeon is, after that I'll be heading in there myself and killing whatever blew us up." Vergil said as he walked towards Sena and the rest of the adventurers that headed towards the direction.

Kazuma helped me up as I held my nose in pain as some blood from one of my nostrils started to pour out.

"Are you-" Kazuma tried to ask, but I rudely interrupted him "I'm fine…"

Darkness finally came back from where she went and walked ahead of both me and Kazuma not taking a glance of me holding my nose in pain.

I guess I shouldn't tell them about the killing anytime soon don't need to make things worse...

As we started to walk deeper into the forest with the group of Adventurers, Sena, and Vergil, it was a very awkward trip there. It was back to being silent and looking at each other with concerned glances and looks of awkwardness.

Anytime one of us tried to say something to break the mood, their sentence always ended up breaking away in terms of volume where it'd soon turn into a mumble.

Seeing that now was a good-ish opportunity to apologise to Darkness, I breathed in before calling out to her, "Hey Darkness, do you have a-" I wasn't able to finish my sentence since she cut me off with a solid 'No' in the same resentment tone she had.

"You could at least let me-" I tried telling her but she cut me off once again but with an actual answer, "I don't need you to finish, I already know and don't want to hear it." She said as she sped up her pace distancing herself from me even more than before.

I signed in defeat as I genuinely felt hurt for the first time, but sadly I can't complain. I caused this in the first place, and it on me to deal with the cold shoulder, but it still hurts to feel that way.

Aqua and Megumin walked up to Darkness and tried to reason with her, but ultimately failed when they didn't get an answer from them.

We soon came to a stop when we finally reached the same dungeon we were at a couple of months ago.

As we looked ahead of us, we saw a large group of those masked chibi figures walking out in an orderly fashion until they went in a random direction in the forest.

"Man, I never seen this type of monster come out of the Dungeon, it really is a different kind of monster than normal…" Kazuma said as he observed the chibi figures ahead.

"It's still so strange to me that they exist, something is telling me that they shouldn't exist at all." Aqua speculated as she pick up a small rock, is she really gonna throw one at it like a kid?

Vergil went up to us and explained us what Sena had planned in mind on how to deal with the situation:

In hindsight, it would be prefered to head into the dungeon and find out what was causing these monsters and take it out. Megumin gave the suggestion of using an explosion to take care of it easily, but because the dungeon is a big recommendation for beginners where a beginner friendly town is nearby, it'd be like shooting yourself in the foot, so we can't resort to that.

Since some people had to go in and take out the source of the jihadist dolls, they would be given a talisman to seal a portal that would be in there just in case taking out the source didn't work.

Unknowingly one of those small dolls came up to us in a sneak attack and walked or waddled up to Aqua.

"Aqua watch-" As I tried to warn Aqua about the exploded chibi's Vergil put his hand over my mouth preventing me from speaking out.

"Oh whoa! Whoa! Whoa...what the…?" Aqua was caught off guard and surprised as the figure walked up to it a hugged her leg.

"Huh, you know you're really cute up close and all that, but part of me really wonders why I get the feeling of wanting to curbstomp you...Hey, why are you getting warmer, Kazuma I had a bad feeling about-" Aqua was cut off as she got exploded from the little chibi that hugged her leg.

Vergil finally finally spoke up after removing his hand, "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they explode, sorry for forgetting to mention that important fact." Man he really, doesn't like Aqua…

Aqua, who surprisingly isn't an exploded corpse, stood back up to complain at Vergil, "You did that on purpose didn't you!? I could've died you know!"

"It's a shame that you didn't…" Vergil mumbled as he walked away from the charred up Aqua, "What was that you demon scum? I'll purify you if you keep having lip with a goddess like me you know? Better watch what you say!" Aqua said as she tried to threaten Vergil

"You're not a goddess you know? The trial confirmed that lie a long time ago, it's better to move on to another joke for us to laugh at, we're getting bored of laughing at your face and intelligence…" Vergil replied as he made Aqua teary eyed and pouty.

Damn, that wasn't even a sick burn, it was just plain hurtful…

Aqua started to sob as she spoke up, "N-not one of you even c-checked to see if I was o-ok…"

"I guess that this is the dilemma we're facing, we can't get close since the lightest touch will make them explode, but they'll explode regardless of what we do, so we're stuck in a tricky situation…" Sena said as she tried to find a solution for this problem.

"There is no tricky situation, just let me in there and I'll take care of the problem myself. I'll cut them down before they can even get within 5 feet of me." Vergil said confidently as he held the Yamato in a battle ready stance.

"I-I see, well then I guess we can leave this to you then. Ok, good luck!" Sena said as she as convinced of Vergil's confidence.

"I won't need it, I'll only need a couple if minutes." Vergil said as he started to walk over and deal with the chibi's with the Yamato drawn out….up until he disappeared be into my arm…

"Huh?" Almost everyone said in unison.

"U-ummm, would someone mind explaining...what happened?" Sena said as she was thoroughly confused along with literally everyone else here.

I find it sort of strange that he disappeared into my arm all of a sudden, it's not like he ran out of….oh

ohh….

I looked towards my arm.

~ ~ ~ ~

Did you run out of Mana?

 _…._

Ok…

~ ~ ~ ~

Damn, now that's really embarrassing to experience. Speaking out full of confidence about taking care of this situation only to run out of mana.

I spoke up on what just happened clearing the confusion that everyone had on their minds.

"O-oh, i-is that what..happened…" Kazuma said as he tried to contain his laughter along with Aqua.

All of a sudden my Demon arm flew up and smacked him in the back of his head.

"Sorry, that was Vergil. He can uh...take control of my arm if he wanted to…" I said as I apologised for Vergil…

"O-ok, now that, that plans useless since we don't have Vergil, does anyone else have a plan?" Sena asked as she was trying to take in what just happened and find another way to deal with the problem.

While we were thinking of a plan, Darkness who was still silent went up to one of the dolls that somehow snuck up on us again (we really need to keep a lookout for those things) and kicked it with full force straight into its stomach as it detonated without hesitation.

"Darkness!" Some of us shouted, but when the dust cleared it appeared that she wasn't hurt by the explosion at all.

"Those don't hurt, come on Kazuma I'll clear a path." She said plainly as she drew her sword and started to actually hit the chibi figures coming towards her without any misses, which dumbfounded everyone...

...but I guess the dolls were slowly waddling over without intentions of dodging at all...

"Oh uh, sure…" Kazuma said as he placed me next to a tree to lean on, "Come on Aqua, lets go follow Darkness." Kazuma said as he grabbed Aqua wrist trying to drag her in.

"No wait! Let me stay here! I don't want to be abandoned inside there again, please!" Aqua pleaded as she struggled to get out of Kazuma's grip.

"You're still part of this problem, so you have to come with me! Megumin can't use her explosions and Tsukiyo isn't at 100% by a mile, so you gotta come with me!" Kazuma said as she struggled to drag Aqua in.

After what seemed like 10 minutes Kazuma finally gave up on dragging Aqua and just went with Darkness as a 2 man party to deal with whatever was in the cave.

There were also a couple of adventurers going with them as an escort, but couldn't even get near the entrance with all the dolls pouring out and very slowly waddling over towards them...menacingly…

It was a while after Kazuma and Darkness went inside the cave and so far the amount of Chibi figures lessened and lessened.

At this time I asked Megumin a question, "Hey Megumin, do you think Darkness will forgive me after what happened to her? If that's even a possibility at this point…"

She sighed before replying her answer, "I don't know, I've never seen her act this way before. I'd be a lot more comforting if something like this were to happen to you or Kazuma because of your personalities, but it's hard to say about Darkness…" Megumin sounded uneasy as she replied to this.

Of course it wouldn't be this easy…

Aqua then spoke up after drinking some tea that she pulled out from wherever the fuck she hid it, "I think you two should just talk it out, you know like an intervention of some kind…"

"It'd be easy if I was able to do that, but she doesn't even want to hear what I have to say so how's that gonna work?" I replied shooting down her idea.

"Well that's easy!" Aqua exclaimed happily, "We can just tie her up with some rope that we can buy cheaply, problem solved!" I'm not sure if we can do that for very, very clear reasons…

"Aqua we can't do that, how are we gonna tie up Darkness if she's the strongest one next to Tsukiyo? Besides, I don't think it'll be an intervention at that point..." Megumin said as the both of us probably had the same idea…

"What? It's not like we're going to actually…" Aqua stopped talking just before she was sniffing around like a bloodhound.

She stood up from where she was sitting down and started to chant something facing towards the dungeon entrance where Kazuma and Darkness were walking away from, " 'Sacred Exorcism'! " Aqua said as she finished her chanted.

I was sort of confused when she chanted it, I mean there isn't a threat-

HOLY SHIT DARKNESS IS ON FIRE!

I ran over towards Darkness as she was engulfed in white flames with Kazuma next to her panicking just as much as I was.

As I ran over towards Darkness and Kazuma, ignoring the pain that was going apeshit on my lower side, Kazuma was no longer panicking as he looked at Darkness and see that she wasn't hurt.

"Darkness! Are you okay!?" I said as I was slowly walking up to them, strangely enough she was wearing a mask that was exactly just like those jihadis with a paper stuck on the head, "Uh Tsukiyo, I'd stay back if I were you. This is really Darkness, but I guess it still sort of is?...I mean…." Kazuma tried to warn me as he got flustered and confused on what he wanted to say.

Before he could even get his words out properly and a what he wanted to say, I had this eerie feeling of needing to hold my demon arm up until it shot up, surprising me, and caught what seems to be the tip of a sword, a sword Darkness was holding.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Pay attention! This isn't the blonde girl doing this!_

What!?

~ ~ ~ ~

Darkness then started to speak up from staying silent, or at least not in her own voice, "Fufufufufu! Fuhahahaha!" The voice Darkness had chuckled "Isn't this a pleasant surprise for moi! So much delicious negative energy come this one, I must say, I never thought she would have this much energy in her!" The voice said.

"Kazuma! Context!" I struggled to say as I was struggling to hold the tip of the broadsword from hitting me using my demon arm to hold the blade, and my normal hand to hold my side from the pain.

"Uhhh, long story short...Darkness is being controlled by a Demon King Boss and because the talisman is slapped on he's trapped in her body until he gets exorcised…" Kazuma said loud enough for most of us in the area to hear.

Shit!


	39. A Heart to Heart (Vol 3 end)

"What? A boss of the Demon King Army!?" Sena said as she was shocked to hear what was happening

"Fuahahaha! Allow moi, to introduce thyself to thou!" The voice said as it was still controlling Darkness, "Greeting humans, and demon! I am Vanir! Duke of hell, and one of the Boss' for the Demon King's Army, Arch Devil Vanir!" The voice, Vanir, said as he introduced himself.

Aqua started to walk up to me and Kazuma with an irritated face, "Ugh! Another Demon! I'll be more than happy to exorcise you back to hell! Tsukiyo keep Darkness still!" she said as she chanted the same spell from before.

"Ha! So Naive!" Vanir said as he moved out of the way from Aqua's exorcism spell.

"Darkness stop moving around so much, I gotta get rid of that filth that's controlling you!" Aqua said as she tried to perform the spell again.

Darkness who hadn't said anything finally took control of her own mouth, "I'm-I'm trying! It's moving on its own at this point!"

"Fuhahahaha! Does Moi need to re-explain thyself woman? Let Moi explain so even a toddler can understand, I feed off negativity! And the amount you hold within is a spectacle to behold! Moi doesn't even need to provoke thou for negativity, thou is bursting with it!" Vair said as he started to attack me using Darkness' body.

I took out the Red Queen and used it as a shield to block Vanir's hits. Compared to Darkness and her fighting style, it's the completely opposite of what I was expecting.

Darkness, the one person in the party is always able to not hit anything at all, the ground included with fast strikes and high impact, was now able to make quick professional level strikes and slashes that almost always lands their mark.

What's even worse is that he's using Darkness' body as a puppet for this fight so I can't hurt her at all. Even though we do have Aqua to heal her, I just can't swing at her from all the pain I caused.

I don't want to make it worse from actually hurting her in battle and shrugging it off later!

As I was blocking with the Red Queen, I was able to push back the broadsword aimed at me and had the chance to make a clean slash at him, but hesitated to do so because of Darkness.

Vanir stepped back and started to mock me for holding back, "What's wrong Boy? Can't strike Moi because of your females companions body? Tis' a shame since Moi can't say the same!" Vanir said as he continued to move closer to me and continued trying to push me back.

"I could use some help Kazuma!" I shouted as I was constantly on the defensive from Vanir's slashes and overhead strikes that he pulled off.

"Got it! Let's see how useful you are when you don't have a weapon! _'Steal'_!" Kazuma shouted as he aimed for Darkness and tried using his only offensive move.

A bright light shone from his hand towards us as his skill worked and tried to disarm Vanir from using a weapon.

By the time the bright light finally cleared up and dimmed down, something very...unexpected happen…

For some "strange" reason, I didn't have my weapon with me and was left empty handed on fighting Vanir…

"Oh...oops…WHOA!" was all Kazuma had to say when he held the Red Queen in his hands and nearly lost his balance from the weight of how heavy it was to an ordinary human who wasn't it's owner.

"Goddammit Kazuma! I didn't mean take my weapon, I meant Vanir's Weapon!" I shouted as he continued to charge towards me and fight.

"That's my fault! I'm sorry, but I don't know what happened! I was 100% sure I was aiming for Darkness!" Kazuma apologised as he was watching me dodge most of the strikes that Vanir attempted.

"Fuahahahaha! Did thou really think such a simple trick could work on Moi? Sorry to disappoint, but after looking through thou's mind back in the dungeon, Moi could already see your skillset! Fool!" Vanir boasted as he was able to catch me off guard and go for an overhead strike.

I caught the blade once again as I was getting pushed down from Darkness' strength.

The pain from my wound started to worsen as time went on along with the increased pressure.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Dammit! There's still not enough mana for me to come out!_

How much is there?

 _After the wait from when those two entered the dungeon and after they came back, I was only able to save up to 4000, it's not enough for a spell to help out!_

How about Devil Trigger?

 _Yes, there's enough, but you don't have the skill to beat this guy_

How much?

 _About an hours worth, but if you use the Yamato's energy too much you'll reduce it down to 20 minutes._

Plenty of time then!

~ ~ ~ ~

I was able to shove aside Darkness' broadsword as it clipped my right shoulder making a slightly deep cut.

"Oh my! Did Moi not cut deep enough? I apologise, let Moi fix that!" Vanir said as he tried aiming for my head.

I was able to block it as I unleashed my Devil Trigger and summon the Yamato quick enough to parry the sword away from my head.

"Oh ho? My, what an interesting form thou has taken boy! But will it be enough to take me on and save thou's comrade?" Vanir said as he got into his battle stance again and waited for me to make the first move.

But before I made my move, "Hey, Vanir was it? Tell me, since you're controlling Darkness with that mask and is currently sealed, couldn't you be considered a spirit of sorts?" I asked him

Vanir on the other hand, looked at me with a suspicious glance, "What is thou plotting?"

"Just answer the question, then I'll let you know…" I replied back as I held the Yamato in my left hand getting into a battle stance similar to Vergil's with my demon hand hovering just over the grip of the Yamato.

Vanir soon smirked to himself and answered my question, "If thou thinks that the sword you wield can kill Moi, thou is sorely mistaken. Moi's true from is hidden in Hell, breaking this mask won't kill Moi, but it'll release thou's comrade."

Damn, he can't die from this… but at least it'll save Darkness from him…

"Ok, I got it." I said as I started to mentally prepare for the fight, "Hang on one moment Darkness, I'll save you from this bastard very quick…"

"Save me?" Darkness said, and it was actually her voice this time instead of Vanir's, "So now you want to save me!?"

Darkness' voice was cracking up as she had control for the moment, "Uh...this feeling of despair...I'd rather not consume this at all...pass..." Vanir said as he sounded disappointed.

"Shut it demon!" Darkness spat at Vanir as he left his one comment

"Hmph, with a background as elegant as thou's, your attitude is comparable to a sailor's…" Vanir commented as he felt a little hurt from what Darkness said to him.

"You say you're gonna save me, but why now!? Why didn't you come back those past 2 weeks to save me then, Why!?" Darkness said as she sounded like she was on the verge of tears, "We're comrades! We're supposed to trust each other and keep promises! Do you not trust me enough to come with you?"

I felt hurt as she said those, "I do trust you, completely! I did what I had to do to protect you! The real problem is that I couldn't trust myself! I have no idea what I'd get myself into if things went very south, I didn't want to let you get caught in the crossfire!" I tried to reason with Darkness as she was venting out on me.

But I was caught off guard when she started to charge at me with her sword ready to go for an overhead.

"Uhhh Boy, just know that Moi isn't doing anything as of right now..." Vanir said as he sounded a bit uneasy on what was happening.

I blocked it with the Yamato, but when I did, the impact of her broadsword seemed liked it doubled and was slowly pushing me down.

"You sound just like my father! You do things without my consideration and feelings, and act as if necessary to protect me when confronted about it! Well I'm tired of others controlling my choices for me!" Darkness cried out as she continued putting pressure on me.

I started to push back with words of my own, "I didn't do this because I wanted to, I did it because I had to! I have no idea what I'm capable of when I'm beyond the red zone in terms of hate! I had to separate myself from everyone before someone got hurt!"

I was able to push back Darkness with the Yamato as we were now equal in terms of the amount of force we're putting into the fight. I was able to make her lose her grip on the sword for a split second when shoved the Yamato back towards her, but since she has an iron grip she was able to re-adjust herself and go for multiple vertical horizontal and diagonal slashes at me.

"Right if someone got hurt, someone other than me huh!? What are you capable of Tsukiyo, if you're really capable of anything at all!" Darkness spat as her swing started to get much more wilder and heavier.

I did my best to counter all of her strikes towards me along with trying not to hurt her at the same time, but as we kept swinging, countering, and parrying each other as time went on, we started to draw blood and break off pieces of armour.

Within a couple of minutes, both of us were out of breath. Darkness had most of her armour broken off from the Yamato with lots of cuts on her arms and tattered clothing. I was on the same boat as her but, I had a lot more cuts on my body, arms, and face from the lack of armour.

Darkness tried rushing at me with a slash aiming starting from her left side, and I got into a position ready to counter it similar to Vergil's Judgment Cut's. When she was just about ready to swing her sword at me, I was able to not only deflect the sword away from me, but I was able to shatter the sword as I chopped off the upper half of the blade with a swift upper slash.

As soon as Darkness was caught off guard from her sword getting broken, I used my Devil Arm to grab Darkness' head from the mask and slam the back of her head onto the ground.

Focusing on my arm that was still on the mask, I tried to absorb all of the energy that was held in it to lessen the grip on Darkness mind.

"W-what are you doing!? My Energy…!" Vanir said as he didn't know what was happening and tried to remove my hand from the mask using Darkness' hands but was slowly losing control of it "Party's over pal…" I said as I continued to take his energy

While I wasn't able to absorb all of his energy, I was able to take away most of it to leave him in a weakened state. The amount of energy I had absorbed from the mask, surprisingly didn't give me energy to blowback at the enemy like expected...

"Aqua, exorcise him now while he's weak!" I shouted, trying to hold Darkness down as her arms flailed around trying to get my arm off the mask.

"Got it!" Aqua chanted her spell one more time, this time she was able to complete her spell as a large rune was displayed right under us.

"Ahhh….tis a shame...But, no worries, Moi will be back…" Vanir said as he started to chuckle to himself with a smirk.

As the exorcism finally finished, the mask that was on Darkness' face started to chip on the sides as white flames started to pour out of it until the mask withered away completely.

As of right now, Vanir was gone and no longer had control of Darkness' body or mind, but that didn't change the situation at hand.

I took my hand away from Darkness' face since the mask wasn't there anymore, but I was caught off guard as she sucker punched me on my jaw switching out our positions.

Darkness was now on top of me Punching me repeatedly in the face, "Why do you always do this!?" Darkness said as she started getting teary eyed, "From the very beginning of when we fought you still held back on your swings when I was giving it my all, Why!?"

"Why are you now, being so considerate!?" She said as tears were starting to fall. Before she was able to punch me again, I manage to counter her before she punched me in the head again and laying her on her back while restricting her arms to be able to punch me by moving them above her head, "Let go! Let go of me dammit!" Darkness said as she struggled to get out of my grip.

"Like I said before, I had no idea what I was capable of when I in that mindset back then! I was afraid of hurting someone if I went overboard, and I'd rather not hurt someone that I care about!" I shouted as I tried to get her to listen.

"If you really cared, you would've been back sooner wouldn't you!? So stop lying about it!" Darkness shouted as she continued to struggle with tears.

"I'm not lying when I say that! I wouldn't have been ready enough to face you guys if I had come back earlier!" I shouted back as I started to feel more hurt than anger.

"Then what makes you so ready now compared to two weeks ago!? What changed you that made you want to see us!?" Darkness continued to shout.

At this point I was at my breaking point where I spilled everything I was trying to hold in, "I'M NOT READY! I'M NOT READY TO FACE YOU GUYS BECAUSE I'M A MESS! IF I STAYED BACK IN AXEL WITH MY EMOTIONS UNFILTERED AND BOTTLED UP LIKE ALWAYS I WOULD'VE KILLED PEOPLE THERE OUT OF ANGER AND PAIN THAT I KNEW THERE JUST LIKE I DID THIS MORNING!" I shouted as tears were now pouring out my eyes.

"FOUR GUYS DARKNESS! I KILLED FOUR MEN THAT POSSIBLY HAD FAMILIES WAITING FOR THEM BACK IN THE CAPITOL! AND WITHOUT A SECOND OF HESITATION, I JUST CUT THEM DOWN WITHOUT CONSIDERATION FOR THEM LIKE THE DEMON I AM!" I was just so hurt that I couldn't control what was going out of my mouth anymore…

"It doesn't even matter what people think of me anymore, good or bad It'll all be the same once word gets out! I'll be a bounty target and will be hunted down for murder and treason…It's only a matter of time before it happens…" I couldn't talk anymore after all the shouting and crying, all I wanted to do at this point was just...well I didn't even know what to do at this point…

I don't know if Kazuma and the others will still accept me into their party even after all I said.

I got up from lying on top of Darkness and headed over to Kazuma to get back my sword while still emotionally broken. I got looks from everyone that was there, whether it be sympathetic, horrified, saddened, or blank, I ignored all of them and went into the forest heading towards Axel.

"Where are you...going?" Kazuma tried to ask me but I didn't reply back as I continued to walk.

With some directions that Vergil told me, I was back at Axel after an hour.

Since it was the middle of the night, no one was around to see my pitiful face that had bloodshot eyes…

Well, there was at least one person who'd go out in the middle of the night for no reason and I was somehow able to bump into her as I was walking towards the mansion.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't see you….Tsukiyo is that you? What's wrong?" Wiz asked me after seeing how I was.

"You don't need to worry about it Wiz, it's nothing…" I said with my slightly raspy voice

"Of course I have to worry about it! I'm not gonna turn a blind eye to someone in need! Come to my shop, I have some tea there." Wiz said as she grabbed my hand and guided me to the shop.

"No, it's fine. You don't need to waste your time with me…" I said trying to resist Wiz.

"I'm not gonna take No for an answer! Come on!" Wiz said ignoring my rejection for the tea, I had no choice but to follow if she was gonna be stubborn.

After a 5 minute walk to Wiz's shop, she busted out a small kettle, filled it with water, and immediately boiled the water using some magic.

After 5 minutes of preparing the Tea Wiz came up to me with a gentle smile and handed me a small cup of tea, "Here." Wiz said as she had a cup of tea herself.

I took the cup of tea and drank it. The tea had a very gentle taste of lemon while having a nice fragrance as if you were sitting in front of a bed of flowers.

"It's good right?" Wiz asked me as she smiled drinking hers, "They say tea tastes better when you drink it with friends!"

I guess she might be right.

After I finished drinking my tea, Wiz then asked me the question she had in mind, "So why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

I was very hesitant to tell her since I wasn't sure how she'd react, but because she'll probably hear it from Kazuma or someone else, I've got nothing to lose at this point.

"Wiz...have you ever killed someone?" I asked her without hesitating

"Tsukiyo...you didn't…." She said while looking hurt.

"I know, I know...It's horrible...I already know that…" I said while trying not to get too emotional

"It's not like I meant it either, I just lost control of my emotions when those guards killed the one person who was accepting of me when I went to go take care of my feelings…" I recalled while slowly but surely losing control.

"Tell me everything that happened, I need to know why…" Wiz said seriously as the air around her started to get chillier.

I told her everything that happened to me from the very moment I came to the village up to when the Elder was killed and I lost control.

With each moment that I Told the story the chill started to dissipate and soon return back to normal temperatures.

"Tsukiyo…" Wiz said as my hands were blocking my eyes from trying to rub out the tears from coming out again.

I soon felt a hand rub my head as Wiz told me in a gentle voice, "What you did, although it is wrong, doesn't make you like the rest of the demons. You don't need to be so hard on yourself."

Wiz continued to talk to me, "I've been an adventurer for most of my life, and there were a lot of things that I did that were considered illegal by law, but morally correct. Killing is only wrong if it's for the wrong reasons. Of course venting your anger is by no means a justified idea, but at least it was used to protect others. The Villagers, you friend Meryl, and the Elder. You're not like one of the other demons that I've seen in my day, you're much much better than them, no point in comparing the two of you."

Wiz's tone suddenly turned back to very serious "I'd punish you for taking 4 people's lives and killing them by unjustified motives, but it seems that your emotional breakdown is enough of a punishment."

Wiz then took her hand off of my head and started to pack up the tea, "You should go back to your home and rest up, it's very late out and your party might have a couple of things to say in the morning. Goodnight Tsukiyo." Wiz said as she started to lock up the shop.

I guess Wiz is right, I should probably stop being so hard on myself, but I'm not sure if I can...

I continued to head towards the mansion after I left Wiz's shop. When I made it there, it seems that I was the first one to make it back, there were no signs of the group waiting for me in the living room when I opened it and surprisingly no signs of Meryl and the villagers...

As I headed up to my room, I sort of felt comfortable walking back in familiar hallways.

I finally made to my room, and after opening the door I was hit with a small waves of sadness as I looked at my room.

The Bed was made neatly and made with care since I never really make my bed 50% of the time after waking up, and the wilted Zinnia flowers that were there from when Vergil took over were replaced with new ones in a small green vase.

I really needed to apologise to Darkness...for everythings that happened. I don't care how long its gonna take, I have to apologise for every shitty thing I made her feel…

I tried to lay down into my bed, but no matter how hard I try I just couldn't fall asleep. I was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted, but I just couldn't sleep at all.

For the next hour or two, all I could was just wait for them, whether or not if they wanted to talk to me was their decision.

As I was sitting down on my bed not sure of what might happen next, I heard the door downstairs open. After that some voices and heavy footsteps coming towards my room.

"Tsukiyo!" A voice that sounded like Darkness shouted as the footsteps gots closer and closer, "Darkness calm down!" another voice rang out, it sounded like Megumin this time...

I didn't move from my spot and waited for the party to get here.

My door was soon kicked open, Darkness was at the door frame panting from exhaustion and glaring at me.

She soon stomped over to me where I was sitting, "You…" She said angrily.

She grabbed my shirt tightly with her left hand as she was about use her right hand to punch me straight in the face, I didn't move from where I was or braced myself for a punch.

As I waited for her to punch me, her right arm was shaking as she tried to punch me.

"What are you doing!? Why won't you fight back!" She said as she was starting to tear up more.

"Because I don't want to..." I replied

"Why…" She said as she started to breakdown again, "Why do you always do this…"

Instead of punching me like she would've, Darkness was lightly punching my collarbone out of frustration and pain as she was trying to hold in her tears. She fell onto her knees as she tear flowed out of her eyes.

"Darkness let me be the first to say that I'm sorry." I said as I got down onto me knees with her as she cried, "What I did two weeks ago was wrong of me. I never meant to hurt you in a way that made you feel unwanted and powerless, and it hurt me knowing what you've been through right after I left. I don't expect you to forgive me after this and I won't be surprised if you don't, I wouldn't either. If you want to continue punching me and letting go of that resentment and anger, then be my guest, I won't hold a grudge against you. Just know that I never want to hurt you on purpose, regardless of any circumstance."

Even though there is still a lot more to be said as an apology, I feel like this is good enough as a start.

Darkness now laid her head on my chest as she continued to cry, "Tsukiyo…" Darkness asked me

"Yeah?" I replied back

"Please don't leave again, I don't know if I could handle it if you did…" Darkness said in a low voice only for me to hear.

"Don't worry, I won't be going anywhere…" I said as I held her head close to me.

Man…

Darkness then looked up to me as she let go of my shirt, "Promise?" she asked me

...I'm really can't help but like this girl too much...

"Promise." I said as I wiped some of her tears away with a warm smile.

"I guess I would also like to apologise, I don't know if I was being too selfish from my request…" Darkness said as she wiped some of her tears away.

"You don't have to apologise for that. Compared to the pain I put you through, you basically get a free pass not to…" I said reassuring her.

"No, I have to. I should've at least taken some consideration for you especially after...what happened, I'm sorry." Darkness apologised as she looked down.

After remembering what happened from what Darkness hinted at, I started to get this uncomfortable feel, "No, it's alright..I've already brought this on myself. I've got to take responsibility of some kind for it…"

Kazuma then barged in and started to take away from the mood, "Ok, ok. No more sadness and all that, alright? We've apologised to each other, aside from Aqua, and we're done with this. Let's just go to the Tavern and celebrate Tsukiyo coming back, what do you say?" Kazuma said to try and brighten up the mood.

"I think I'm good, I'm sort of exhausted and would like to take some kind of rest." I said denying Kazuma request, Darkness did so too, and probably had the same reason to an extent.

"Aww you guys are boring, Come on Aqua, Megumin, Let's leave these lovebirds to themselves alone, _by themselves_." Kazuma teased as he left my room.

hold on wat...

"My oh my, what could you be hinting at Kazuma? It certainly can't be what I think you're hinting at…" Aqua chimed in as she followed behind Kazuma.

"H-hey don't joke about that Aqua!" Darkness said embarrassingly as she caught on to what the both of them were hinting at.

The only one standing near the door frame was now megumin who had a bored/blank expression on.

"Megumin, please you should have some more common sense than Kazuma and Aqua, please don't make this any weirder than it-" I cut myself off from ten sight of Megumin having some kind of shitstain smug grin on, she only said one word and left as both me and Darkness felt like we got backstabbed…

"Lewd…" she left with those words as the pain lingered for a while…

It was now me and Darkness both on the ground as we sort of sat there in silence and awkwardness.

"I should…" "I think we should…" We both tried to say something but cut each other off.

"You should go first…" I told Darkness

"No, no. It's fine, you go…" Darkness said back to me.

She and I both laughed sort of nervously as we were sort of a mess…

"Umm…" Darkness spoke up, I turned my head to hear what she wanted but couldn't help but blush from her trying to get the words out. Goddammit! What is this feeling!?

"Did you really...kill 4 guys…?" She asked, my blush and embarrassment was flipped on its head as it turned into guilt and sadness.

I breathed in and out to get rid of some of the fear as I told her the truth, "Yeah...uh...I really did…"

"Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be insensitive!" Darkness frantically apologised

"No, it's alright. I've got to talk about it someday and get used to it. The sooner the better, you know…" I said as I tried holding in my pain.

I then started to tell Darkness what I've been through for those last 2 weeks, about the Guards, the training, the discrimination, the Elder, and the killing.

"I'm sorry for asking…" Darkness said as she put her head down again as she became depressed from my experience.

I made sure to bring her head up this time when she did, "Like I said, I brought this on myself. You don't have to be sad about it, it's not your fault."

I looked outside, and it looked like the night became a bit brighter, "We should probably gets some sleep, you go first. You've already had a rough 2 weeks to deal with." I said as I stood up and offered Darkness a hand.

As she stood up, she started to blush a bit and look away. I didn't understand at first, but when I realised that I was holding her hand I started to get embarrassed too. ( **HOW FUCKING DARE YOU, DOING LEWD SHIT IN MY CHRISTIAN MINECRAFT SERVER!** _~Konran_ )

"Sorry..." I said as I letted go of her hand quickly, "Oh no...it's okay…" Darkness said as we both were embarrassed at the same time.

"Ugh...you guys are kids I swear!" A voice came from the door frame as it was murmuring.

"Shut up Aqua we're gonna get heard!" Another voice murmured.

As both me and Darkness looked over, we saw both Kazuma and Aqua peeking in with one eye trying to spy on us.

Darkness started to have her face brighten up like a cherry when she realised we've been spied on. While my faced did brighten up same as hers, it was not from embarrassment but from anger.

Without a moment to spare, I pulled out my revolver and shot the ground near them making them fall to the floor, "O-oh hey there Tsukiyo! We were just checking up on you, you know?" Kazuma said as he and Aqua were shaking in fear.

"Kazuma, Aqua…" I said as I turned on my Devil Trigger.

They stayed silent as I was towering over them, "Run…" I said as I pointed the Blue Rose at them (Yes, it's just like that one meme.)

It didn't take Aqua that long to run from me as she pushed Kazuma in front of me to leave him as bait, "You bitch don't leave me like that!" Kazuma said as he shouted.

I turned my Devil Trigger off and went back into my room as I sat down on my bed with my hand trembling.

"Tsukiyo?" Darkness asked out of concern.

"I'm fine…Go wash up, I'll be there after your done…" I said as I took in a deep breath.

Darkness left without an argument and left me alone.

My stomach was churning as I sat down on the bed. I'm not sure how bad it'll be when I go out and do missions, but I know that I'll be a lot more hesitant to kill something even if it is a monster.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _It's like I said, it'll get easier with time and the amount you kill, but just know that it's a last resort if it means survival. Don't get caught up with feelings, they'll only get in the way in terms of judgement._

Right, last resort...

~ ~ ~ ~

I laid there in bed as my hand continued to tremble, but slowly went back to normal over time.

Just like I told Darkness, I went over to the bathroom to wash up after she was done and was hoping that I could get some sleep tonight.

As I laid there in bed, I was wondering. Now that I've killed someone, or 4 peoples at least, what's next?

Since Sena was there to hear me confess, she will have to take me in. But what's after that?

A fine? Prison Sentence? Death?

If any of those 3 does happen, Darkness is gonna step in, I know that much, since she's going to want to help me, but I don't want to rely on the Dustiness authority for any reason, and I don't to use Darkness' family to get out of hot water…

I tossed and turned in bed thinking bout all possible outcomes that could come out from this.

At the very least, if it's a fine then I'll be more than grateful to pay it off with some work. Prison just might be a repeat of what happened before, and death isn't an option whatsoever…

Banishment is good to the extent that it's only me, I don't feel like dragging in my party if it does though. If this world does have it then maybe I'll be forced drafted into it army...wait no, they'll see me as a demon and reject me, so I guess that's good?

I continued to toss and turn until I was fed up and just stopped thinking about it all together.

Whatever happens tomorrow, I just hope it doesn't screw me over completely.

I just closed my eyes after that remark and just kept them closed. I didn't care if I fell asleep from that or if I'm still awake, but at least it got me through the night with some rest.

As I opened my eyes from successfully falling asleep, I looked outside and saw light grey clouds that covered the entire sky. If I were to make some kind of guess on how much sleep I got last night, I'd guess right around 4-5 hours from how my eyes were stinging with a familiar type of fatigue/pain.

As I stepped out of my room, the mansion still seemed very silent from everybody sleeping.

I made sure to not wake them up by walking very quietly towards the stairs down into the bathroom. But because of fucking logic, every step that I made my room towards the stairs made a loud creaking noise.

Ah fuck it, I'm too tired to deal with this bullshit.

I started to walk normally halfway from my room to the stairs.

When I finally made it down to the bathroom and washed my faced, I looked at myself in the mirror, and can 100% assure myself that I look like shit.

My eyes were still a bit bloodshot from both tears and lack of sleep, and because of the lack of sleep and exhaustion I was starting to get some dark shadows and a small amount of bags under my eyes.

I chuckled as I compared myself to one ugly fucking raccoon.

I then walked over to the living room where the fireplace was put out, so it was freezing there.

I was hoping that this could get me to wake up a bit, but it only made me cold and tired.

I sat down on the couch and just continuously rubbed my eyes and face to knock off my tiredness, but was failing hard at it.

For the next hour or so, all I could do was just yawn, over and over and over non stop.

Where some liquid cocaine (Coffee) when you need it!?

Everyone else was starting to wake up as I heard them walk down the stairs, a couple of normal sounding footprints with one pair that rapidly went down the stairs.

"Tsukiyo!?" Darkness shouted as she rushed towards the living room.

I was still a bit dazed from my fatigue so the only thing I managed to get of my mouth was a slurred, "Hmmm Wa?"

"Oh, thank goodness!" Darkness said as she gave a sigh of relief, "I thought you left again, and was about to breakdown...again…" Darkness said as she was about to cry from me disappearing again.

"Don't worry, I'm still here. " I said while still yawning.

"Are you okay? You still seem tired." Megumin said as she was stretching her arms.

"I mean for now I am, but in another 3-4 hours I just might crash from 4-5 hours of sleep." I said as I stood up and headed down to the kitchen.

" 'Crash'? Is that bad?" Darkness asked out of concern.

"No it's not….It just means I'll be so tired, I'm going to fall asleep again wherever I'm at, at that time. Don't worry too much about it, I've been down this road so many times, and I know for a fact that it won't be the last…So! Who's hungry? I'm willing to make eggs if it means getting my sleep fatigue away from me for 5 minutes…" I asked as I was now in the kitchen looking for a pan and some type of fork.

"Ooh! I do! Can I get it Omlette style!" Aqua asked as she eagerly jumped to me for some food.

"No you fucking won't. After the shit you pulled last night, you'll get scrambled…(like your brain)" I said as I finally found the pan small enough.

"Hmpf! Fine then! I'll just have some at the celebration today!" Aqua said as she walked away pouting

"Celebration? What for?" I asked, I don't know about the holidays in this world, so I don't have a fucking clue…

"Oh I guess we didn't tell you, Since you and Darkness defeated a Demon Boss General, Kazuma set up a celebration with the nice counter lady to celebrate it." Megumin replied.

"Oh….ok" I said as I continued making the eggs, I sighed to myself for a moment before having the following word repeat in my head for an hour...Shit…

As I focused on making eggs for the party, I couldn't help but shake this feeling of having some kind of anxiety…

As I finished making eggs for the party and got ready for the celebration in my room, the feelings of anxiety increased into fear.

I think I already knew why I was scared, probably because I know I'm gonna get called out for my crime and be singled out from the group. What happens after that is literally up to anyone's imagination.

I paced back and forth in my room, trying to get rid of this fear, but the more I thought about it the worse it got.

There was a knock on the door as I was pacing around, "Tsukiyo, you ready?" Kazuma said

Ah Fuck! I'm not ready! "Yeah, I guess so…" I replied back.

I stepped out of my room and started to head towards the Tavern for the first time in two weeks for a celebration.

We were now in front of the Tavern with lots of noise coming from the inside with the fragrance of of booze and food hitting your face as soon as you open the doors, or door hinges, making you ask 'What the fuck is going on?'

Before we entered though, Vergil now takes the time to reappear and stretch his limbs from staying inside my arm for so long. I asked him about it and replied that, 'Anything is fine as long as I'm not trapped in your body dealing with your thoughts.'

The six of us now entered the Tavern, and the moment we did, for some freaky paranormal reason, everyone looked towards us at the same time to greet the six of us! What kind of fucking timing is this!? That shit isn't suspicious at all, nope not at all! (Sarcasm)

You know at this point, most of my fear is gone now and is replaced by so much fucking skepticism from this scenario...

"Ah Tsukiyo!" Linda called out with a full plate of food for the tables, "I'm so glad you're back, by the way...who's this man?" Linda said as she started to check out Vergil.

"This is the demon who lives in my arm, his names Vergil." I replied as I tried introducing Vergil.

Linda expression went from interested to surprised, "He...lives in your arm…?" Linda had a hard time trying to understand what was going on, and I was starting to feel bad for her…

"...foods getting cold.." I said trying to snap her out from trying to figure out the meaning of life, "Oh! Oh you're right! Your guys' tables is over at the left near the bar!" Linda said as she and the other waitress' had their hands full trying to complete orders.

As we all went and sat down over at our tables, I couldn't help but notice Sena, sitting in the bar area, right next to our table.

As we sat down, Sena who was quiet while looking at some papers, called out to me, "Nakano, sit down…" She said in a monotone voice as she pointed to the empty stool next to me.

I sat where she told me and I managed to take a closer look at the documents she was reviewing, it looked like letters and a spreadsheet.

"I dug a little into the 4 soldiers that you killed last night…" She started off with, and in an instant fear took over once again, "...all four of them started in the capitol about 2 years ago. Everything seemed normal in their papers, wife, kids, home, until I took a closer look. Their names aren't registered into the capitol population." She said as she took a sip from a martini, "Not only that, but it seems that the men who entered the village at that time had abandoned their post without reason or notice to other guards multiple, multiple times endangering both the citizens of the capitol but also the princess as well."

"Ok and? What does this have to do with me?" I asked her, she just looked at me and drank her entire martini, "Those who abandon their post in the capitol without any notice is subject to punishment from the princess, repeated offences can lead to the death penalty, and because this has been happening for god knows how long extorting a village for chump change compared to capital checks, they would've been immediately sentenced to execution should they have been caught. What I'm saying is that you're off the hook to an extent."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, my unjustified actions of murder somehow turned out to be justified.

"But...only to an extent." She said harshly as she gave me a glare, "Although the killing were justified, by their backgrounds and motives, you still have to pay crimes for multiple counts of Involuntary manslaughter. As you said, you lost control of you emotions and killed them without the intent of doing so. I'm sorry to bring this up in this time of celebration, but I'm going to have to fine you with a fee of at least a million eris and one month mandatory quests to carry out by the capitol if need be. You should be glad that your actions were involuntary, anything more and I would've sent a clean up crew after you." Sena left me with those words as she left the bar with the documents and letters to myself along with the party

I sat back at my bar stool and massively exhaled from holding my breath, holy shit I just dodged a bullet.

I'll fucking pay a million eris, I don't care, I'll be more than willing to work my ass off with some mandatory quests after killing 4 guys.

I looked back at my party as they looked at me from where they were sitting, I just gave them a thumbs and that was enough to give one back.

Getting caught off guard, someone put their arms around my neck and started to give me a noogie, "Hey! Looks who's back from their edgy journey to get rid of their edge!" Kosuke said as he had a mug of booze in his hand.

"By the way, I heard you ran into Zofia in her hometown, did you really try hitting on her sister? I never thought you had it in you!" He joked as he started to tease me, wasn't hard to tell that he was drunk…

It was at this time that Vergil walked up to Kosuke and put his hand on his shoulder with a very menacing smile on his face, "Oh Dear Brother...it's so nice to see you here…" Vergil said as he was starting to terrify both me and Kosuke.

Kosuke looked behind for a moment, and the fear in his eyes, man...what he looks like is literally fear incarnate.

Kosuke was freaking the fuck out as Vergil was looking at him dead in the eyes, "O-oh h-hey bro..haha...how's...uh..how it going?" He said as he was getting backed up into a wall.

"Oh...you know, I've been pretty swell…" Vergil said as he placed his hand on Kosuke's shoulder again, making him just about to shit himself, "Come, sit with me…" Vergil was guiding Kosuke to a bar stool next to our table.

Kosuke took a pretty swig of his mug, just to take his mind of Vergil.

Vergil is enjoying himself too much isn't he?

But before we could finally relax and take it easy, me and Darkness were called up by Sena.

"Tsukiyo Nakano! Lalatina Ford Dustiness!" Sena said with a loud confident voice.

Most of the adventurers were surprised to hear Darkness' full name for the first time, amd they really liked it for some odd reason.

"Yeah! Lalatina" "Good job Lalatina!" "Lalatina!" Most of them were starting to call out and chant Darkness' name.

Darkness was completely embarrassed, hiding her face from blushing by getting called by her actual name.

"hmmmm! Please stop calling me by that name…" She mumbled as she hid her face with her hands…

I grabbed Darkness shoulder gently, she moved her hands to look at me when I told her, "Nice job out there, Madam Lalatina! Your father would be very proud! Such a cute name..." I said with a confident voice.

Darkness balled up her fist and push me away, "I….don't mind if its you calling me by that name….I guess…" Darkness said shyly as she looked away.

Shit...I guess it's my turn to be embarrassed…

"In Honor of your bravery for fighting a Demon Lord Boss, and contributing to the safety of this city, We offer you our thanks. Along with that, we would like apologise for the things out of our jurisdiction that happened to you, Tsukiyo. The way we handled it was poor even if you were a demon." Sena said as she deeply bowed.

Linda who was next to her stepped up and said in a loud enough tone, "Is there anyone else that would like to apologise?"

As she said that, all of the adventurers got silent as they put their mugs on a table near them, and got down on their knees.

"Tsukiyo!" one of the head adventurers said, speaking for the masses, "We are sorry for the damaged that we did. As veteran adventurers, it was wrong of us to stay silent and dishonorable to leave a fellow adventurer by themselves in their time of need, especially when you didn't abandon us in our time of need. We are ashamed of what we caused and apologise!"

Oh for fucks sakes Linda...

I sighed as I really didn't like getting the spotlight in some situations, ironic coming from me since I have a literal demon arm that sticks out like a sore thumb…

"Guys get up…" I told them as I sort of got annoyed.

"No! We have dishonored a code all adventurers swear by when we start our adventure! We will not stand up until we are forgiven by the gods for our actions!" One of them said as he got emotional

Goddammit, "Ok fine, I forgive you guys for what you did even though it fucked me over hard, (Will the real Slim Shady) Please stand up." I said as the faces of the adventurers started to brighten up and get cheerful again.

"Yeah!" "Woohoo!" "Let's Drink!" They all cheered.

Sena cleared her voice loudly getting all the adventurers to shut up.

"Secondly, I would like to award Lalatina of the Dustiness family with an award of Valor for the selfless act of holding in the Demon Vanir within you enduring the pain of being controlled and used against your will. As for a reward, the smith of the Royal family has handcrafted you new armour to use along with a letter of gratitude." Sena said as a knight walked up and placed a standee of a very sturdy and expensive looking armour.

"Yeah Lalatina!" "Congrats Lalatina!" "Lalatina!" The adventurers chanted out once again, this time Darkness curled into a ball while hiding her face from embarrassment from hearing her name.

"After reviewing your prize money from not only defeating the Mobile Fortress Destroyer and defeating a Demon Boss King," Sena said as she got out a big bag of what seems to be some eris, "We award you of 40 millions Eris after clearing your debt from the Damages done to Lord Alderps Mansion!"

I was then given the very fucking heavy bag of coins, holy shit...I'm fucking rich!

I'm just noticing right now! I'm fucking rich!

After that, everyone was cheered on and at max volume.

Since I'm a nice guy who knows no bounds sometimes, I treated everyone, Aquai included sadly, to a drink and some food.

I tried a bit of booze from the Tavern and I have to say is...it tasted like watered down shit...but wasn't as Bad as I thought.

After all that was said and done, Kazuma and Darkness dragged me to the side and told me something that needed to be heard.

Apparently, Vanir the Demon Aqua exorcised was a friend of Wiz. While he was there to visit her, his true target was Aqua since he knew about her status.

Him and Darkness wanted to head over and give her the news of what happened, and wanted me to come with since I was the one who pinned him and had Aqua kill him.

I was certain that he said that he will be back, but was he messing with my head by saying that?

As we left the celebration early and headed off into the shop that housed a shopkeeper that was always in the red. Vergil had to come with since he can't go more than 40 ft away from me from the Transference.

We were now right in front of the door as we sort of had an uneasy attitude to deal with this.

Darkness insisted that she would be the one to tell Wiz about Vanir since she was the one that had Vanir control her.

We all a deep breath of air to calm ourselves before breaking the bad news.

As we opened the door expecting Wiz to be doing something and still lose out on money, what we saw was Vanir...in an apron...alive….

"Hoho! Welcome Monologuing Sailor tongued Royal! Thou should've listened to the halfling as he was right! Moi did come back, but differently! Hahaha...huh?...Sailor Royal? Why art thou hiding behind the halfling and curling into a ball? Why art thou secretly cursing for Moi's death? BUT oh! This shame that you're exuding is Ab! So! Lutely! Delicious! It's as if Moi's in an all thou can eat!" Vanir said as he continued to tease Darkness as she was hiding behind me.

I was going to….you know what, forget it, Fuck this logic, I'm just gonna accept it and say yes…

"Ah! The halfling has finally broke in his mentality! Tis a shame! But Moi considers this as vengeance for stealing Moi's Energy!" Vanir said as he got mad at the end of his sentence, "Hmpf! Tis no big deal! Halfling doesn't understand the energy stolen from me, so Moi has nothing to fear!"

"What do you mean by by understand energy? Did I get some kind of skill from you?" I asked as Vanir gave me a smirk, "Hahaha! Good Grief young Halfling...thou is too funny…"

Wiz now came up to me and congratulated me on the prize money and getting the whole Demon Boss accusation cleared up.

I'm not gonna ask how Vanir is back, but I'm just gonna head home and sleep before my crash comes in full effect.

"Oh? Does the halfling not want to understand how Moi is here in the non existent flesh?" Vanir asked as his smirk was still showing.

This man just read my mind didn't he?

"Clairvoyance is Moi's specialty…" Vanir said arrogently

Of fucking course it is…

"My word, thou's vocabulary is even worse than the Royal Sailor…." Vanir said as he felt offended.

"Well, no matter allow Moi to reintroduce himself! Moi is Vanir Mark II!" Vanir said as he pointed to the roman number 2 in his mask.

I was not impressed from his performance as I started to walk away from the shop towards the mansion.

"So rude! Moi is introducing thyself as a harmless employee and thou doesn't care in the slightest!" Vanir said as he got angry from me not being impressed from his intro.

I was starting to get really tired as I continued walking towards the mansion.

While Vanir was still audible, he started to countdown, "Five...four...three...two….one…" And as he finished his countdown, I was out like a rock and fell onto the ground asleep.

One thing I learned that day...booze and fatigue don't do well together...especially when it came to morning time…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

There you have it, end of Volume 3 after the 'Off Grid' series.

Sorry that it's late and posted at 4am, but writing 10k words for a Volume end was necessary.

YES IT WAS, DON'T ARGUE!

Also fun fact, the last chapter was done literally 5 hours after I posted 'Blood', and this chapter took the whole damn week.

I'd say that more could've been done in this chapter, but at this point I just want to move onto the next one.

BTW, I haven't forgotten about the Villagers, Meryl, Elder, etc. This will be explained next chapter.

Happy New Years to all that reads this at the time it was posted, I don't have a new years resolution if you're gonna ask cause I can't make promises to myself...I'm really fucking tired…

Same shit, different year...

Questions from you guys…

(Guest) Saru

- _Is it possible for the Demonic energy used by Tsukiyo, to be used for other creative purposes?_

 **Not sure, Tsukiyo has to figure out what he took from Vanir and actually learn it, to use it for other purposes...**

(Guest) Jenson

- _So how long will Tsukiyo reunite with his party? Also did Vanir just kidnap him?_

 **Yes...**

(Guest) Perry

- _There will be people who will stand up for him like the Guild staff and the Elder, right? Will Tsukiyo learn Demon Magic?_

 **I don't know, if you think about it, Tsukiyo and Kosuke are the only half breed demons in the Konosuba-verse, people already have a shitty opinion on demons since the appearance of the demon king, which is more than 100 years maybe...for your second question...maybe...**

(Guest) Yov

- _How fast are Tsukiyo reflexes? What are the other training would Vergil put him through?_

 **Tsukiyo's reflexes are nothing special compared to his skills, as you saw last chapter, his 25% chance of predicting a sneak attack pulled out and helped him at that moment. From a scale of 1-10 I'd say it's just about a solid 7, even after Vergil's training.** **The entire training program from Vergil is:** **Stamina increase (Laps around the village as punishment and daily)** **Increased defence (becoming a punching bag)** **Pistol Accuracy** **Cold resilience (no warm red sword)** **Swordsman practice (becoming a punching bag 2.0)** **Learning literally almost everything (even stephen hawking would be mindfucked…)** **Strength increase (basically stole this idea from SAO by cutting down trees with a blunt axe.)** **Increasing some kind of Reflexes/Agility by catching summoned swords and dodging Vergil** **Dodging Vergil for hours as he used 20% of his power with Yamato.** **All of the above happened twice since it was during a 2 week period, there might be more training in time.**

(Guest) Oran

- _So how long would it take for Tsukiyo to get better with his power and abilities like Nero?_

 **I don't have a specific time to add this to him, but it will be at least in end of Volume 4/beginning Volume 5, while included in OVA chapters.**

(Guest) Shin

- _Out of curiosity what are Wiz's thoughts on Tsukiyo demonic powers and more specifically his arm?_

 **Wiz doesn't really see Tsukiyo as a demon even with his arm exposed, as you saw this chapter, she is more than willing to help him out, but since he's part demon he sort of represent the demons to an extent. She still considers Tsukiyo as a nice guy, but still remembers that he's a demon. She hasn't met Vergil yet, but will in later chapters, a.k.a it's gonna be explained in the next chapter.**

 **REVIEWS**

Review from DxHologram, Dec 23: Yeah it would be a cool idea, but demons were something probably at the beginning of time along with the idea of gods. Something like that, is a very, very long way for Tsukiyo, but it's at least shorter since he's a hybrid. Naruto was casted away because of Kuruma and what happened to him as a kid when he was a kid, can't compare sadly since in terms of cannon it was at least 30 years ago, compared to the beginning of time/creation. I also feel like this is sort of a reflection of sorts of real life, there can a community where all races are accepted, but hidden societies that don't accept anything will always be present no matter how hard people try, Ex: black people 1960's, hispanics current time, etc.

Tsukiyo's life was normal, and compared to Kazuma's life, he was actually doing pretty well. He didn't have a career choice, and he did suffer some pain when he was a kid, but other than that, he was doing pretty well for himself, he could get a good paying job even if it meant doing some labor or general use since he had experience.

Review from Gen2324, Dec 23: Yeah you'd think that there might be some demon sympathisers, but in a world where demons are number one targets and half breeds like Tsukiyo and Kosuke are dime a dozen, it's a hard situation to explain and keep track of. But hey! Tsukiyo already made peace with the people in Axel some intense situations, you think it might be the same on other places after some pretty intense situations? Hint hint?

Review from Jenson, Dec 23: I'm not sure if I'm reading this right, but Tsukiyo did take care of those 4 guys from the capitol without much of a scratch, of course it took time but, it did happen. Taking on 4 people seems a little iffy for me since, if you think about it, could you take on 4 people on your own that have proper training? Don't worry there might be more training session from Vergil, and if it does happen, it won't be as intense as his bootcamp.

Review from Lil'Manuel.G, Dec 23: Well then, where do I start…

Thank you for the amount of positive feedback, and just like DxHologram, I don't know how to respond since I'm not used to this much positivity, so...thank you?

Like I've said before, the off grid series was my first serious attempt of wanting to write a story/world based off the world in the Konosuba-verse, but completely separate from the tried and true areas, hence the name "Off Grid"; The world is there, but the setting is away from all that.

The reactions that some of the villagers showed, was something that I wished I could've done at the very beginning of the chapters, but didn't to it, so I guess I somehow made it work 30 chapters later...

Yeah, I'm not gonna deny this, I'm really predictable for majority of stuff, and I guess the only way to not be so predictable is to come up with a scenario that involves some DMC stuff in it, other than that, I'm pretty predictable, not gonna shy away from that and I don't know of it'll change because of my sort of ok writing, Sorry!

The guards too are a good call out, since those were those were made with the least amount of effort. I'm not gonna lie, I just said 'Meh why not' for most of their dialogue/actions, I got really fucking lazy.

For Tsukiyo not resorting to Vergil, it's just my version of not using DT because I always forget to use it even in final bosses...

No need to know what an off the chart/off grid series means, it's just my fancy as fuck way of saying "actual fanfic material that's an actual fanfic."


	40. Being Sick Sucks (OVA)

It's been just about a week since I've regrouped back into my party, and about 1 week since I've started my mandatory quests from the Capital from killing those 4 guards.

Most of my quests were nothing special, most times they're just escorting people from one place to another, other times it was just general labor and heavy lifting, and thankfully there are some quests where it was just 'slay this amount of this specific amount of monster', I'm still having some problems of killing monster/animal after what happened.

Of course because this is mandatory from the capitol, I'm not getting paid for any of this, no matter how hard or time consuming it is. What makes those quests even worse is that, it's not just one quest for the day and then I'm done, no, it's not like that. I have to do mandatory quests for the entire month, waking up at dusk and finishing just after dawn and into the night, where I'm then allowed to go home and rest.

For the week I've already done, I've done just about 7-9 quests per day.

I've already sworn off not doing 12 hour shifts after having that for my first job, since I feel like having some kind of free time to come home to after 12 hours of manual labor. This is very similar to that experience, I'm doing an entire 12 hours of hard labor and sometimes very tedious tasks, the only difference is that I'm not getting paid 1,400 Yen (12.50 US) per hour because I'm not getting paid at all…

Well, I guess it doesn't bother me as much as it should be since I'M FUCKING RICH!

With that being said, because I do just about 7-9 different quests for the week with a good amount of them being outside, it's seems that I sort of gotten myself sick.

Now this is nothing new to me, If I get sick, I'm not gonna care and just do what I need to do for the day, but this time is different….For once in my life I've gotten sick to the point where I've been bedridden.

Maybe the sickness came from outside, maybe it come from someone else, maybe I overworked myself to the point where my immune system said fuck you and stopped working, I don't know, but what I do know is that I'm weak as shit and can't move my body/arms much, I can't breath through my nose because it's all blocked off, or my mouth much since I'll cough until my lungs lose all oxygen inside them, and I'm constantly cold wherever I go no matter how much layers I wear even though I've been wearing the same shirt and pants since the beginning with a cloak I've gotten about 3 weeks ago...I should gets some new clothes...definitely…

Now I somehow managed to get to the Tavern after 40 minutes of hobbling and taking rests, but as soon as the Linda saw me in a pretty shitty state, she called off the Quests for today because of me looking and feeling like shit.

That was about 4 hours ago, and I couldn't really sleep well since my sleep schedule is trying to force me to stay awake while feeling like wanting to take a nap.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Those within the Sparda bloodline don't really get much illness so I can't help out as much, you'll have to wait it out until you get better. I'll let the others know about you._

~ ~ ~ ~

Since I haven't used my mana as much this week, Vergil was able to keep his form for the full 8 hours, so hopefully he can help me.

Vergil was able to come out of my arm easily and compared to me, he looks completely normal and doesn't look like their dying.

He left my room and left me by myself, and it wasn't even 5 minutes before loud stomping rushed heading upstairs and near my room as Darkness kicked down the door again, even though I just repaired it…

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness called out, I was still in bed and was only able to give a small wave from the weakness of feeling like shit. She came near my bed and kneeled down right next to my bed as she looked concerned.

Everyone was soon came after and saw me look like shit, "Oh wow, you uh….you had better days, I'll tell you that…" Kazuma said as he trying to make the situation light.

"Yeah he had. Like I said, he's just bedridden, no need to act like he's dying." Vergil said as he pushed the Aqua and Megumin aside getting in the room as he leaned against the wall across my bed.

"Well that's no problem!" Aqua said as she cracked her fingers, "I'll just cure you!" As Aqua now stood right next to Darkness, she started chanting her usual heal spell.

As she finished chanting her spell and used it on me, I felt no different from before.

"Hmm? Strange..usually this spell heals people…" Aqua said as she looked at me hands confused.

"It's because he's sick not hurt. You're spells will only heal wounds, this isn't a wound, it's illness and fatigue." Vergil said as Aqua had a blank face on.

"Oh...Well, I got nothing! Good Luck Tsukiyo!" Aqua then said with a smile as she left my room

At least one problem is gone…

"There isn't much we can do right now other than wait for him to get better. If you want to stay here be my guest, I'll only be out if Tsukiyo needs me." Vergil said as he disappeared back into me arm.

"Don't worry Tsukiyo, in times like these, the only cure for being bedridden is a piping hot bowl of Chicken soup, I'll go see if we can get some from the Tavern." Kazuma said as he left my door frame and and headed towards the Tavern.

"Darkness," Megumin said as she spoke up, "Why don't we get some water for Tsukiyo, if he's gonna be there for the entire day, we should at least make sure he isn't dehydrated."

Darkness then hesitated before leaving with Megumin to probably get a jug of water.

Alright well, I guess staying here won't be as bad as it seems right?

I seem to have taken a small nap after all four of them left because as soon as I opened my eyes again, it seemed to be almost afternoon.

Darkness was still right next to my bed looking intently at me, "Ah! You're awake! How do you feel?" She asked me, I was only able to groan lightly since I didn't feel like speaking one word and coughing up blood.

'"Hehe...I guess I should've expected an answer like that if you're feeling that weak, do you need any water?" she asked as she poured out a some water in a small glass cup.

I was able to nod just enough for her to understand, I, for the most part, was able to get up but was having trouble trying to sit up.

"Here let me help" Darkness said as she helped me fully sit up.

She handed me the glass cup carefully and placed it in my hands, she then took her hands away quickly while lightly blushing from the fact that our hands made contact again.

Feeling just as embarrassed as she was from how gentle her hands felt, I was able to gulp down the water quickly as if I was an alcoholic…

"Thanks…" I was able to say since the water sort of helped my throat.

"Y-yeah…" she said as the both of us were very...awkward…

I laid back in my bed a little bit more awake but still feeling like shit.

Suddenly we heard a tap on the window, and for some very stupid reason, Kosuke was the one tapping and looking in as he had some stupid grin on.

Darkness was just as surprised as I was when we saw that, aren't we on the 2nd floor?? What the hell is he standing on!?

Darkness was hesitant to open the window, and looked at me to see if it was ok to open the window, I nodded and she soon opened it.

"Hey Tsukiyo, you look like shit!" Was the first thing he said as soon as the window was open.

"U-umm, Tsukiyo's been bedridden from his quests this week, so he can't really talk or do much." Darkness said, Kosuke nodded his head and gave a look of understanding

"Oh, that's sucks...hold on, is it just the two of you in this room? Am I interrupting a special moment for you guys, I'll leave if uh..you need more privacy…" Kosuke said as he immediately made the wrong assumptions in purpose.

Darkness' face flared up as soon as she understood what he meant, "N-no! No we weren't doing anything while we were alone!" She said as she was getting flustered

"Dick…" I was able to utter while trying not to cough.

Kosuke squinted his eyes and leaned in my room with his ear extended, "I'm sorry I couldn't hear you properly, could you speak up a bit?"

It was at this time that Vergil took his form and was face to face with Kosuke, "How about you tell me, I'll make sure Kosuke gets the idea…" Vergil sinisterly said.

I shit you not, the moment Kosuke was face to face with Vergil again, he threw himself off the window still from the 2nd floor and ran as fast as he could as if Vergil was chasing him.

I still want to know how the fuck he got up to the window when we were on the 2nd floor, it's all flat wall on the other side...

Vergil shut the window and got back into my arm again without saying a word.

It was at this time that Kazuma finally came in with a small pot of what I could assume is chicken soup like he said he'd get, "So...your friend was running away from the mansion from fear, should I ask or…"

I shook my head as he asked and he set down the small pot on the desk near my bed, "Right...by the way he also gave me a letter that he forgot to give you, said it was important…" Kazuma said as he handed Darkness the letter.

"Let's read it after the soup, I bet Tsukiyo's hungry…" Darkness said as she put the letter on one of the shelves.

"Oh right the soup! Sorry that it took a little long, the Tavern was packed and the chefs were backed up on orders, so this one was homemade by the counter lady that's always nice to you. It was hard to find a bowl and spoon, but I guess a wooden spoon is good enough. Now let's eat!" Kazuma said as he placed the bowl on my lap and while Darkness helped me sit up again.

I looked over to the pot where he opened the pot and made his cheerful mood into looking pissed while looking at Linda's cooking, He soon closed the pot and left my room with no words.

I heard a shout from outside my room, "AQUA! Did you just purify Tsukiyo's soup!?" Kazuma shouted as he sounded really pissed.

She fucking didn't….

Darkness was just as surprised as I was and took a look inside the pot, she confirmed that it was purified when I saw her face went from _'Oh It can't be that bad,_ ' to _'Oh...it's really fucking bad….'_

Motherfucker! Linda has really good cooking skills too!

"W-what!? No! I would never do that! Show me the proof, I want proof!" She shouted back as they were now both outside my door.

Kazuma dragged her into my room and showed her the pot of hot water, Vegetables, and Chicken…

"Oh...hehe...my bad?" Aqua said as she 'apologised' for ruining some of the best cooking in this town.

Kazuma smacked her in the back of her head as she didn't care for the soup, "OW! What the hell!? I didn't do anything wrong!" Aqua tried to argue, Kazuma smacked her again "OW! Stop that!" and again, "Ok, it might've been my fault, but please stop hitting me I might get brain damage!"...and again, "OK! It was me! But I can't help it! It smelled too good and I just wanted taste some of it! Is it so wrong to want some soup!?" She said as she was on the verge of tears.

I noticed fidgeting and panting from Darkness when I saw her, see Aqua get abused by Kazuma.

I was giving the same look to Darkness as Kazuma gave to Aqua.

Darkness noticed me giving her the look and ask "W-what?" She said as she stopped fidgeting

I just put my hand on her shoulder, gave a her a smile, shook my head, and laid back down on my bed to hopefully take a nap again...and hope that it'd be tomorrow and I'd be able to work again…

"T-Tsukiyo...what did that look mean?" Darkness said as she wanted an answer, "Hey! Don't ignore me!" She said again as she shook me trying to get me to get up…

Sleep Faster! Sleep Faster!

It seemed to have worked somehow since the next time I woke up it was already end of dawn, and most of my body seemed to have rested up perfectly…

I was able to get up by myself and speak for the most part, of course my nose was still stuffed up but as long as I don't feel like shit, I'm perfectly ok.

Darkness apparently was taking a nap on the foot of my bed, as I guess I woke her up from too much movement, "Mmm...Tsukiyo?" She tiredly said as she rubbed her eyes.

"Looks like you managed to get good nap in." I told her in a slightly raspy voice from not talking for a long time. I stood up from my bed and stretched my body and cracked, my neck, arms, back, legs...literally everything crackable…

"I guess so...what time is it?" she asked as she looked out the window.

"Just about to be night time, we should get ready for dinner if Aqua hasn't already ate it already…" I said as I drunk a bit of water.

"Yeah, I guess we sho-" Darkness tried to say but suddenly went into a sneezing fit.

"Huh?" She asked herself when he was done sneezing

Don't tell me…

I placed my hand on her forehead which made her squeal a bit and turn red, her forehead was burning.

I took my hand off unfazed, "Go to bed…" I told her

"What? I'm fine. Why would I need to go to bed?" She said as her voice started to sound nasally

"Go to bed…" I repeated

"I told you I'm fine, I don't need to go to-" She tried to say again as she went into another sneezing fit.

We both stayed silent for a while, "I'll go to bed…" Darkness finally admitted.

"I'll make sure to get Linda's chicken soup recipe…" I replied after putting on my boots.

Being sick really sucks…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Ok, now I know some of you are waiting for the news on the villagers, Elder, and Meryl, I sort of lied since I just came up with both of these chapters and wanted to write it down. Since these are OVA's they will be probably half a chapter if it's a small situation, (2500-3000 words) and most of the time not followed up on unless its for another game crossover or specific situation.

The letter will be explained in the next Official chapter, not OVA.

Sorry for the clickbait but not really….

Replies are on the next chapters end along with some important things that need to be said...


	41. A Day in Life of Kosuke (OVA)

Somewhere, in this fantastic magical world where logic seems to defy itself on many ways, shapes, and/or form, There is an adventurer by the Name of Tsukiyo who is a Hybrid Demon. He lives in a mansion with 3 other adventurer companions, and one he just might cross the line of companionship with...

Now while it has been confirmed that he isn't even considered a half of a demon by the half breed demon, Vergil, Son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, Tsukiyo still compares himself to one from the traumatic experiences of killing four guards from the capital from killing an Elder of a village that he stayed in for two weeks.

As of right now, Tsukiyo is doing mandatory quests from the capitol given by them as a punishment...but this isn't that type of story today….

This is the story of a 26 year old man by the name of Kosuke.

He, just like Tsukiyo, is also a demon of sorts. While Tsukiyo inherited the powers of a Demon by the name of Nero, Kosuke inherited the powers of the Uncle of Nero, and brother of Vergil, Dante.

Kosuke, 7 years ago, was abandoned by his parents the moment they realised he was old enough to take care of himself. So without a second though, they left the city and never told him where or why, they just left.

After a year of trying to get a job and not getting a single reply from them while trying to survive off of starvation with multiple visits to the hospital, he decided why not end it all and decided to overdose from leftover drug needles that his parents left.

When that failed, he was brought to a hospital from a concerned neighbor after hearing pained shouts and screams. His overdose attempt put him in a critical state to the point of needing life support.

When he came to in the hospital and realised what was going on, he pleaded the doctors, the nurses, and other patients that were near him to just end his pain.

When no one fulfilled his request, he did it himself, he pulled the plug and had no regrets as he breathed his last breath. Doctors worked on him for 2 hours trying to bring him back, but failed to do so.

The only non painful memory he had when he was with his parents, was when his dad bought a playstation 2 that was bundled with 3 games that would distract Kosuke when he was ignored and neglected by his parents. Those games were special to him, Devil May Cry.

He beat all three of those game multiple times, stemming from playing at higher difficulties to restricting himself to one weapon to pure meme runs. It didn't matter how many times he beat the game, the gameplay itself and Dante's carefree and cocky personality while killing demons in SSStyle was what made a Role Model to Kosuke, a man who takes the piss out of situations no matter how horribly or surprisingly well it ends up. Because of budget and neglection, he wasn't able to play the fourth installment, but luckily because of public libraries, he was able to watch a walkthrough and respark the love for the series from the fluid gameplay and even more carefree and cocky Dante along with the new character Nero.

So imagine his surprise when he was granted a second chance by a goddess,(not Aqua) that told him that he could enter and RPG-like world where demons exist and he could slay them to defeat a Demon Lord.

He immediately blurted out the words, "I want to be like Dante!"

As you can imagine, the goddess that confronted Kosuke had no knowledge of who he talked about and had mistaken Dante from the DMC series to Dante from the novel Dante's Inferno.

After a brief explanation of what the Dante Kosuke wanted to be, he was visited by an angel that was higher up in terms of authority and was part of God's right hand men, similar to what Tsukiyo experienced...

The angel granted Kosuke the abilities of Dante's moveset from the entire series, along with another wish, and that wish would've been Dante's signature sword, the Rebellion.

Six years Later, Kosuke has forgotten most of the bad memories that happened to him back in Japan and is living happily and cockily slaying Demons that comes from him when he least expects it with the help of his teammate and associate, Zofia.

Both of them run a shop in Axel, and called it _'Devil May Cry'._

 _Late Morning…_

The sun came shining in one of the windows and bothering me and Zofia from sleeping.

I got up from the mattress that laid on the ground that was right next to my counter that held my money pouch, pistols, and keys to the Shop.

I took one of the pillows that Zofia was laying on making her head hit the mattress waking her up as well, "Get up Trish, it's already morning…" I grumbled as I walked over to the bathroom.

Zofia took the other pillow she had and placed it over her head, "5 more minutes…" she mumbled as she fell back asleep, snoring loudly...

It's been about 3 years and she still doesn't get up when she needs to…

As I exited the bathroom from washing up, I put my coat on, holstered the pistols behind my back, and took the keys to open up the shop.

I started to do some stretches to wake myself up before I headed downstairs towards the front doors.

When I got there, I unlocked them using the keys and adjusted the sign in front of the door saying that we're open and walked towards the comfy chair near the middle of the room where I would wait for customers to come in.

Welcome to Devil May Cry. A demon hunting shop where our hours are everyday from morning to midnight, and about 90% of the time I'm just waiting for people to come in. I bought this shop about 4 years ago when I got bored of roaming around and doing some pointless stuff, so I decided to help others from being helpless like I was back when I was in Japan. This used to be a shop/house hybrid for those who wanted to run a small business on the side and not make it a full blown career, something like a low tier store that you'd buy junk food in the boonies or near a community of some kind.

The shop is only two stories, first floor is basically a slightly small room with a desk, closet for the weapons, and a comfy chair, while upstairs is a two bed, one bathroom floor that overlooks the first floor.

Zofia usually takes about 30 minutes after I wake up to get up from her bed and another 30 minutes to get herself ready for the day.

Since she usually has other things to do, what those other things she does is lost to me. Usually she says it's just looking fo stuff to do and exploring the forest near us, and other times she's just hanging around here.

Usually during the afternoon, or sometime after it, I'd go out and slay some demons that pop up from time to time. Those demons come from me when I'm asleep at night and they manifest around the afternoon, sometimes they're in the forest, sometimes they're in the town, and at rare times they don't show up at all...

My brief monologue was disrupted as a old man opened the door with a cane and came up to my desk. He was wearing a standard business suit that you'd see anywhere with big wigged people, along with his suit, he had a fancy fedora with a red tattered cloth wrapped around the base of the hat. He stroked his grey beard as he walked into my shop and near my chair holding just about 3 pieces of paper.

"What's up Mr. J" I said as I was leaning back on my chair.

Mr. J is one of the more trusted contacts that usually gives me something to do whether it's monster or demon related, what makes him one of the more trusted contact is the fact that he has inside men within the Capital that's responsible for distributing the quests for this town and other beginners towns. He usually takes out quests that seem a bit harder for beginners and almost perfect for novices and/or experts like me.

"Ah Kosuke, good afternoon. I got some jobs for you, pays ok, but nothing you can't handle. First one is an infestation of sorts in a nearby forest. There are multiple frost trolls in the forest terrorizing nearby wildlife and low rank adventurers, how about you show them and their leader some proper manners, don't you think?" Mr. J said as he handed me the piece of paper that showed the quest, until he laid down a couple more, "These are more self explanatory, and won't prove to be too much of a hassle."

"Sure thing Mr. J you can count on me!" I exclaimed happily as I got off my chair and headed towards the weapon closet.

"Oh, one more thing…" Mr. J said before he left my shop.

I poked my head outta the closet for the moment and looked at him, "I've checked out the boy you've told me about, Tsukiyo was it?" He asked as he leaned next to the door, "He's seems to have some potential, not a lot but with some training and proper guidance, he might make it far for us…" He said as he was fiddling with a silver coin in is hands before he threw it upstairs where an audible tap was heard along with a groan from Zofia.

If that's not a compliment from Mr. J, then I don't know what is, "Alright, then I'll talk to him about it next time I get the chance." I said as I continued to look through the closet where I pulled out the black suitcase of hell, Pandora.

You know, I'd tell him about the job offer but I already gave him the letter yesterday so he should well aware about it. Maybe I jumped the gun, maybe it was a good time, I don't know….

Mr. J then left as the sun shone brightly through the doorway.

Zofia finally woke up as she was slouched over the railing that looked over the first floor down to me, "Was that Mr. J?" she groggily said as her eyes still stayed closed from just waking up.

"Yeah it was. Nothing special though, a couple of ok paying, probably 500K max today. But our friend Tsukiyo might be joining us, so that's a cool thought…" I said as I headed towards the door, "See ya later." I said as I left the shop and headed towards the forest with the suitcase slung over my shoulder.

Jeez, why does it always gotta be so fucking cold…

To get to the forest, it'd usually take just about 20-25 minutes since I always walk there, but because of the fucking winter, it's now taking about 30-40 minutes to get there since the snow covers up the trail where I'd usually take.

Aside from that though, there really isn't much change from the 4 years that I've been working here; Some of the same people that I've seen and spoke to live here, some don't anymore, some became adventurers and put their lives on the line for others while most stuck to normal jobs.

I always find it weird for me to think about this, but I always wonder what life could be like if my parents were normal.

Would I be happier? Could I have live a happier life with parents that cared for me and was allowed to have friends to hang out with...maybe even a girlfriend? Obviously, I wouldn't been driven to suicide, but I wonder what kind of life I could've had, especially my career since not once have I even thought about having one...

All while I was contemplating my life choices and different possibilities, my body continued to walk on it's own from muscle memory of the amount of times I've been to the forests near the town.

I paid no attention to my surroundings until I bumped into a someone from my daydreaming.

By the looks of it, it seemed to be an old woman in her mid 50's alongside a redheaded elf girl helping her up.

"Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention, are you alright?" I asked since the woman seemed a bit fragile.

"Oh no, it's alright, I'm fine, but could you help us for a moment? We're trying to reach the Tavern of this town and we're new here, could you point us the way?" She asked with a gentle smile, her friend on the other hand kept glaring at me while hiding behind her.

"Of Course, I'd be more than willing to." I said as I gave the same smile the woman gave me, I pointed them in the direction of the Tavern and told them that it was another 20-30 minute walk just incase the old woman couldn't walk for long periods of time.

"Thank you young man, now if you excuse me we'll be in our way." She said as the elf girl continued to help her walk towards the Tavern.

I stepped aside and did the same as I walked towards the forest, where I'd need to kill those trolls.

I continued walking towards the forest and just the forest only.

 _I will not try and give those two a lift to the Tavern since it will waste time._

 ** _Yup, definitely not gonna give in to internal guilt._**

I turned around called out to those two that were walking towards the Tavern, "Ma'am would like a quick lift to the Tavern?"

After 20 minutes of trying to persuade those two that I wasn't a pervert or someone trying to hit in them, I sort of managed to get them to the Tavern in 5 minutes using Pandora's vehicle form and saved those two 30 minutes they would've spent walking.

It's a good thing I used the Pandora a lot yesterday, if I didn't I would've had to walk to the forest from the Tavern and that would've been just another 40 minutes added on…

"Oh thank you for the kindness Mister, you didn't have to do that though, I'm sure you have important places to go to anyways…" The woman said as she was helped down from hanging on from one of the hinges by the elf girl

"Nah, it's alright. I'm just doing this cause I wanted to, nothing else." I said, as I was about to fly off into the nonexistent sunset the woman called out to me and asked me a question, "Would you mind telling us your name? I would like to thank you properly."

"My name's Kosuke, it was nice meeting you two!" I said I flew into the sky and headed towards the forest in a fast pace, I'm really not sure how much gas I have left in this thing, so I need to fucking book it to the forest!

As I was speeding towards the forest (since the Pandora can only go a max of 30mph), I was slowly making my way there until until it started to get slower and slower until the Pandora altogether just shut down and turned back into its suitcase form just as I got over the wall.

Shit, shit, shit, shit!

I fell onto the ground hard, but my fall was broken the by amount of snow that covered the ground.

As I got up from the 4ft of snow of that broke my fall, I was even colder than I was before…

This was I get for helping others...at least it was for a good cause so it's worth it…

As I go up from the snow that made the shape of my body hitting the ground, there was snow literally snow everywhere in my clothes, jacket, shoes, holster, everywhere!

At least the Pandora is waterproof...I think…

Speaking of the Pandora, where did it fall?

As I got up and searched around me, there was no indent on the snow that was square that had the Pandora.

Shit where did it go!? I frantically searched the snow around me hoping to find the suitcase.

If I really did lose it, then I'm gonna have to pay the dealer another 2.5 million just to get another one made!

I searched for an hour or two in the snow around me trying to look for the Pandora, and I was starting to lose hope while looking for it until I tripped on something very solid hidden in the snow.

When I got up and dug into the snow, the suitcase that pulsated with blue energy looked back at me as I uncovered it from the snow.

Oh my fucking...thank….god…

I hugged the suitcase tightly as I didn't want it to lose any grip from my hands no matter how numb they were.

I just saved myself from spending 2.5 million just from being able to find this….

As I stood up and continued to head towards the forest, I noticed the sky getting dark and when I check the sun it looked like it was already setting, I haven't even done the quest yet and it looks like it's already almost sunset.

I continued to walk towards the forest wet, cold, and tired from trying to look for a 2.5 million Case that can kill, and at this point, I'm just really tired and want to go back to rest…

As I was daydreaming again while not looking where I was going, I yet again bumped into something, but instead of it being a random person out in the streets, it was actually a Troll, a Frost Troll to be more specific.

There were multiple Trolls that were near a road probably trying to ambush oncomers and innocent people trying to get from point A to B.

Since I was already annoyed with what already happened today, I'd rather deal with these trolls as soon as possible.

Before I even knew what was happening though, since I don't pay attention to my surroundings a lot, I was already surrounded by a dozen of them where they all looked at me with a menacing glare.

One of them spoke to me in a language that I don't understand.

I looked confused and pointed to my ear, hoping one of them would get the message.

But I seemed to have been ignored, since one of the trolls continued talking in troll language, _English Motherfucker! Do you speak it!?_

Sensing that I have no choice but to mow them all down, I transformed the Pandora into its edgy three bladed shuriken form readying it to throw it around me (PF 422 Grief)

As I started to stretch my throwing arm, more Trolls started to come out from within the forest and join in on the fun that's about to happen and in a short amount of time, the group of 12 Trolls formed into 30.

I readied my throwing arm and used all my strength to throw the glaive at the Trolls ahead of me, decapitating most of them before it returned back to me.

This seemed to have spooked a good amount of them since they started to back up from surrounding me.

I once again winded up my arm, but this time I would spin before letting go of the glaive making it spin all around me cutting, slicing, and generaling hurting all the Trolls around me.

Since they were now kept at bay from the Pandora, I pulled out both my pistols and started firing all around me while spinning around just like my the Pandora but slower.

Bullets flew in each direction, hitting everything they can and soon enough body's were starting to drop as they got too much damaged from the glaive and pistols.

Needless to say, I was singing 'Lets the bodies hit the floor' by Drowning Pool while I was doing this…

The Pandora soon returned back into it's suitcase form as it stopped spinning as it flew back into my hand. It was safe to say that at least 8-10 Trolls were killed from these past 5 minutes, and maybe a couple of the Trolls were badly injured, but it's nothing a little Chaingun action can't fix!

I started to hold the briefcase as a gun as it soon transformed into a single handed portable chaingun (PF 262 Jealousy.)

As the chaingun started to spool up I noticed that the Trolls were now backing up rapidly trying not to get close to me.

It was at this moment that these Trolls knew... _they fucked up…_

I then began mowing down the Trolls that were in my was as I sprayed lead at them easily killing them and mutilating their body in less than a second. I didn't take long for me to just go absolute ballistic and start spraying at every direction.

Be it Trolls, Trees, or domestic animals that got almost get caught in the crossfire, everything in my way would just get downright obliterated.

As the Trolls fled the area where I was going nuts with a minigun, I started to hear multiple thuds from behind me as they got closer and closer.

When I looked behind me after going complete Rambo on them, I was confronted by 5 much larger Trolls that was staring dead at me with looks that could kill.

These bigger Trolls were definitely stronger than those I fought and killed since it had bulging muscles coming from their body armour and had decayed Frost axes and spears while wearing some kind of spartan like helmet.

As they looked down at me with bloodshot eyes and killing intent, I turned the Pandora back into its suitcase form and threw it at the ground where the front of the suitcase faced them.

I smiled at them as I stuck two middle fingers in the air pointed at them as the suitcase opened up completely vaporizing them off the face of this world (PF 666 Omen)

My job here is done.

I closed the suitcase and started to head back into the city where hopefully Zofia picked up those other two quests since I plan on eating some dank chicken soup and being snug as fuck in my bed for the rest of the day.

The winter really does suck…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

All right, well the new year is now in effect and I am getting sort of sick which sucks.

I forgot to mention this back in the Vol 3 end, but thank you to those that are still reading this fic, even to those that are probably reading this when it's finally finished. At this point in writing, I feel like I'll stop writing after Volume 7, and have some kind of Epilogue for Vol 8, and after that...I just might be done writing, like for good.

I basically gave up trying to write a Rainbow Six Siege/Blend S (Watch Blend Siege on YT for context)meme fic from back in October so that won't be done whatsoever. If everything goes all according to keikaku (plan), then this fic, just might be finished end of June, early-mid July, at least 1 year from when I started writing.

For those who are worried or want me to not overwork myself, don't worry about me I'm on break right now and about 90% of the time, I'm always gaming with my friends whether it be R6, Monster Hunter, Warframe, or something else. Writing 2 chapter with 4k words each is really easy especially if you take 1-2 hours per day, but because I wrote 10k for the last one, I needed a bit more time.

Writing 10k words over the span of a week isn't as stressful as you think, especially if you spend 1-3 hours per day on it. The reason why I uploaded the Vol 3 end chapter at 4 am, was because I spent my entire time playing Monster Hunter trying to kill behemoth and failing miserably at it.

tl;dr, Don't worry about me, I'm a lazy sack of shit 90% of the time, and writing isn't even considered as much work for me. I hope to be done with this fic and might be done with writing fics in general at least by mid July if I'm consistent with my schedule, and at that time, I probably will just show my Steam ID along with my Discord name and number.

But you guys should be worried for uploads in February and March because of Kingdom Hearts 3 and Devil May Cry V releases. It should be some kind of miracle if I even upload one chapter…

BTW, the next chapter will be a two part OVA, and I've been really itching to get this written for a long ass time. You'll understand when you see the title.

 **Questions:**

 _Saru (Guest)_

 _There will be more training with Vergil right?_

 **Yes, there will. It might be an OVA chapter, but it will happen someday.**

 _Jenson (Guest)_

 _Will Vanir teach Tsukiyo about Demons and the things they can do with their powers?_

 **Maybe…**

 _Perry (Guest)_

 _Will Wiz also teach Tsukiyo on how to use a power of a Demon?_

 **Not as much, since it was Vanir's magic that Tsukiyo took, Wiz can teach him about control, but not so much as efficiency and usability of said powers.**

 _Yov (Guest)_

 _Will Tsukiyo train even further at this point with Vergil without any interruption or does he have to deal with his debt first?_

 **As I said above to Saru, he will, but It just might be in an OVA chapter. Also you'll see next Official chapter (not OVA) about the debt.**

 _Zack (Guest)_

 _Is Vergil going to guide Tsukiyo similar to how Kratos teaches Atreus?_

 **Fun fact, I sort of got inspired from God of War PS4 when I was doing some of the training stuff and Vergil's 'Killing is nothing special' speech, but to answer your question to an extent yes.**

 _Travisck_

 _So what are they going to do with all that money? I want Tsukiyo to train Darkness to be a more proficient fighter with the sword._

 **You'll see next Official chapter (not the OVA) about the money, don't worry. Also that part about training Darkness, hey now that's not a bad OVA chapter, thanks for the idea…**

 **Reviews:**

A review from DxHologram on Dec 30:

Back when the 'Off Grid' series started I Already had something like this planned and drafted out in the back of my mind. Of course a lot of things changed, but it generally has the same tone of what I had planned originally, so I definitely had some time to put some extra polish on the Vol 3 End (even though it does have a hand full of spelling, grammar, and other mistakes…), I really made sure to nail the emotions head on.

I'm glad you and the other readers enjoyed the heart to heart moment between Darkness and Tsukiyo, I told you I had some wholesome shit planned and I've got so much more to put in for plot and extra's.

For the Tsukiyo absorption part, that was made as a last minute change since originally I planned on making it blowback energy where e would get orange tier powershot, rip off the seal, throw the mask and shoot it, but that was too boring so I changed it last minute and made it a little bit more interesting…

A review from Gen2324 on Dec 30:

You don't have to worry much about me and the word count, Volume endings and the series finale might be the only time I go above the normal 4k word count.

Thanks for the compliments for the last chapters, I really glad that Vol 3 is done, and right now I just want to work on the next one.

I've got more wholesome stuff ready to be written down and fleshed out, hopefully before I end the series. Also I'm gonna have a bit of fun when I reach the Axis cult arc…

An opinion from ThePowerfullKira on Dec 31:

M'kay, well nobody's perfect, the mistakes I write in for Tsukiyo are on purpose. That being said, in chapter 12, he's not really crying about being a demon, he's mainly surprised from the fact that he actually had someone trust him even with him being a demon and not abandoned and left to fend for himself. He felt like it, but didn't.

Now I'm not sure if you'll actually gonna read this since If you didn't like that chapter and Tsukiyo as a character, I doubt you'll continue reading but in the 0.1% chance that you do read this, that is what the Off Grid chapters were meant for, making up for lost opportunities in the past that I tried to save to make the story better.

Even if he did ask for the demon arm, it was in the spur of the moment where zero logic was put and intense fanboyism was taking over. If you died and was given a chance to be reincarnated to another world with any weapon and/or ability, there would be a good chance that majority of people would not think things through after choosing said weapon, I know Mitsurugi is one of those people where he did choose something that did well for him, but since we're dealing with anime logic where everything and anything is good, and I really felt like making DMC/Konosuba fanfic crossover but not really cause why the fuck not, that decision was made.

Besides, if all the choices he made was always right choice, that'd be a boring fic wouldn't it?


	42. Home (OVA P1)

It's now been about, what already 2 weeks I think, since I started the mandatory quests, and I have just about another week I think until the month's over.

Some pretty interesting things happened last week after I got sick…

First off was the letter Kosuke gave to me, now I was sort of expecting some kind of prank or medieval style shitpost, but it was actually a business proposition of sorts about joining in on his devil hunting/ monster slaying job.

Now this does seem interesting and since Kosuke is basically at god mode, this could be a perfect opportunity to make me stronger and get better…

Next up, the Elder came back with Meryl when I was gone doing the mandatory quests. Thankfully, they were patent enough to wait for me to get back from working to meet with me.

And man...I seriously did not expect them…I guess I was caught in between a mix of wanting to cry from relief and being absolutely shocked...

I guess since the villagers still didn't trust me enough, instead of going to Aqua for a heal or resurrection, they went to a different village where they cleaned the wound that was on the Elder and had her healed there.

I can't say that I'm surprised, but it still stings to know that I'm still just a Demon to them, but hey, I think I've accepted it at this point.

I've already been convicted for being a Demon Lord Boss spy/minion, I've already killed 4 corrupted Guards, and helped protect this town 3 times at this point, so at this point my identity is probably already known so trying to hide my demon arm is basically useless at this point.

I don't know how long I've spent talking to her in the living room thanking her for the hospitality and kindness she gave when I was at my all time low, but when she she got up to leave since the villagers are very worried, I stopped them before giving them just about 5 million Eris from helping me not only deal with some of the emotions but just being there for me.

And now for this weeks, strange occurrence...there seemed to be no quests for any Adventurers in the guild. Apparently some kind of incident happened over at the HQ, and because of said incident, the quests aren't being recorded on documents and sent out for the towns.

They're not sure how long it'll take for it to be fixed, so they just told everyone that there won't be any quests until said problem is fixed.

So Hey! Free day off, I'm not gonna complain!

Since I had a day off, I took the rest of the morning to sleep in and just decided to explore some of the town when I woke up in the afternoon.

While I would've done this alone, Darkness insisted on coming with me.

I'm not sure if it was just something she wanted to do since the only time she could talk to me was basically at night or because of the fact that Kazuma and Aqua are acting like hot shit for 'being rich.' Megumin, on the other hand, isn't actually here since she's visiting her family, not sure if she also wants an excuse to get away from Kazuma and Aqua, or is just homesick, whatever the reason, she chose a good time to get away from here.

The both of us just wandered aimlessly in the town for a while, we walked through stores where people mistook us for a couple, a park where a couple of children played, over bridges that had small frozen ponds under us, and to nearby hills overlooking the town.

This walk probably would've been a bit nicer if the both of us actually talked instead of just stayed silent for most of the time...but hey it's not like it's a date or anything right…?

….this was a date of sorts wasn't it….?

No, no, no no, Don't try and fuck up my perspective mind, it's just the two of us hanging out and we're just taking a leisure walk around town since the quests are out today.

It's nothing else…

Darkness probably saw me internally trying to make sense of some things, and asked if I was alright.

"Oh I'm fine, I guess I'm not used to having a day off after doing so much work, just gotta relax a bit…" I replied.

"Hmm, Oh I know, we don't we head to Wiz's for some tea?" Darkness suggested.

"Sure that seems good." I replied back, you know, while I am trying to take it a bit easier, for some reason Darkness really does look a lot prettier today, not sure if it's just the makeup or the fact that I'm slowly developing feelings for her to the point where I get flustered just being near her, but there's just this unexplainable feeling of just wanting to see her be happy...

The fuck kind of logic is this? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

We soon made our way towards Wiz's shop, and the longer we took to get there, the more glances we'd try and sneak at each other from curiosity…

You know, I'd say something about the glances and would try to make an advance as any man should, but because I'm chicken shit, that probably won't happen for a while.

We soon reached Wiz's shop, and before we could even open the door, it was automatically opened by Vanir when he came to greet us. But since it was Vanir who greeted us, Darkness hid behind me and gave him a glare.

"Oh ho ho? Well if it isn't the oblivious couple! We've already prepared the tea, come!" Vanir said as he walked back towards the front of the counter to get the Tea for the both of us.

We soon sat down near a table for two where we got our tea, and was awkwardly drinking it since we were the only people there and in a sense we were a bit too close from each other.

I spoke up to try and not think about how close we were, "So, uh, where's Wiz? Usually she'd be the second to greet us after you would."

"Hmm? Oh, people call her the broke shopkeeper for a reason, thou should understand where she might be at based off that description alone…" Vanir said as he drooped his shoulders and sighed from Wiz buying more useless stuff.

If she a started business in somewhere else that was heavily reliant on items, you can't even imagine how bad that'd end up….

"Moi wouldn't even want to imagine that either, her sense of business is even beyond the understanding of moi…" Vanir said as he literally read my mind without my permission.

"Oh speaking of somewhere else, Moi has found something that thou might be interested in…" Vanir said as he brought out a small box with chains on it preventing it from being opened.

"The other night, The broke shopkeeper bought this box that contains an ancient magic lost to man, demons, and gods. It is said to be a portal of some kind leading to a very interesting place where metal boxes move at incredible speeds, and everything is made of metal, glass, and bright lights. They named it...Japan…?" Vanir said as he was trying to remember what he was told.

I on the other hand was choking from the Tea, from what Vanir told me….a fucking portal to Japan!?

"Coughing...Hold on...you're telling me...that this box leads to Japan!?" I said as I couldn't believe what I was hearing!

Darkness was confused with why I was making a big deal out of this, "Why is Japan so important? Did you come from there?" She asked.

"Yes, Japan is where I was born! Or at least in a smaller region in Japan, but aside from that, it's my home that I haven't been in since months ago…" I was starting to be overjoyed from hearing that there was a way that I could go back home…

"While thou may be overjoyed from this, the portal can only be used once. Once thou enter, thou has until midnight to do what they need to do until they return, after thou has come back, thou's memory will be wiped as if the day never happened." Vanir carefully told me as I was so, so close to just ripping out the chains that sealed the box.

I calmed myself down by pacing back and forth from being so ecstatic from this situation as my heart pounded immensely from my mind racing.

I seriously can't believe this….

"Ok, Moi get's it, stop being so over dramatic, that should be Moi's job…." Vanir said as he placed the box on the table and returned to the counter where he probably checked the stock of useless and unnecessary items…

I sat down as I slowly undid the chains around it, before I was able to open the box though, Darkness spoke up in a concerned voice, "Don't you think we should be doing this as a party? I mean we should probably wait for Megumin to get back and explore...Japan, was it? I feel like it'd be better to explore this as a team…"

I sort of listened to Darkness as she said that, but was too preoccupied with Japan, "Darkness, I'd rather explore Japan with just you at this point. I don't know how long it would take Megumin to get here, and I'd rather not take Aqua and Kazuma for obvious reasons, so I feel like having you here is almost perfect scenario…" I said as my hands were shaking from excitement of wanting to open the box.

Darkness started to blush and smile a bit when I said that, "W-well, if that's you think I guess I can sort of accept...wait a minute, why is it almost perfect?"

"No reason…" I then opened the box that engulfed the both of us in a bright light before Darkness caught on from what I said and pieced things together.

While I was still engulfed in the bright light, I started to hear familiar sounds coming from all around me; Sirens from a police unit, horns honking from people driving like asshats, vendors peer pressuring you to buy something from the smell of food, people on their phones, and those giants screens on buildings that is literally just a professional version of twitter…

...Everything was coming back to me as the light faded out and my vision was back to normal.

I was back in Japan.

But what made me feel even more at home, and a lot more emotional, was the unforgettable smell of a nearby ocean...which meant that we were in Fukuoka...my hometown….

I look around me where I smiled from ear to ear from what I looked at, neon signs that showed hotels, malls, and restaurants that were nearby.

The cars out on the street were, of course, always in a traffic jam of some kind, while the bus took up 50% of the space.

What made being in Japan 10x better was the fact that it was springtime, Fuck you winter!

Darkness, who I almost forgot about, was in even more awe than I was, "Amazing…" she said quietly as her eyes sparked with amazement.

Since she technically got forwarded about 2000 years, being stuck in awe is probably understating what she feels right now.

"Everything looks so...colorful and...shiny…" She said while still being stuck in awe.

Before, I could get fully emotional and be struck with the same awe as Darkness, I checked a nearby building that had showed some news of random pop idol and checked the time; It was just about 3:30.

There was so much I want to show Darkness, even if she will forget it after we come back, but 8 hours is so little time to deal with…

No stop! Don't focus too much on time, that can wait for later, for now let's just enjoy the time given…

Snapping myself out of the slight panic and time management, I grabbed Darkness' shoulder and snapped her out of being so fixated on modern technology and architecture…

"Come on!" I said as she was now focused on me, "Let me show you around my hometown."

As we walked around, I explained where we were;

We were in Fukuoka, Japan. Of course this is the same Japan Kazuma came from, but just a different prefecture.

In this town, where shrines and beaches were its main tourist attraction, the absolute beauty of this town lies in the city life. If you wanted to make a name for yourself and start some kind of life, this was the city to be in. In a sense, you could call it the New York of Japan, while Tokyo could be considered a it's California.

While it is the evening right now, the streets are still very crowded and generally uncaring for tourists, so if you get lost and ask for help, if you're lucky you might get some help, if not, you're gonna get ignored by a lot of people trying to care for their stocks, 401K, company, etc, so it's usually a requirement that you learn a good amount of Japanese.

You know speaking of getting lost, it's probably better to let Darkness stick close to me so she doesn't get lost easily…

While I would've tried to tell Darkness to stick close, it seems to me that I probably should've told her in the beginning since she was already getting swept up by the crowd and getting left behind.

After trying to fight the flow that is the Japanese walking mob for about a couple of minutes, I was finally able to reach her hand that she as she was reaching out to me as if her life depended on it. Before the street light finished, we were able to get out of the streets before we could get run over by asshole drivers with no patience.

"Ok…" I said while the both of us were sort of panting, "Maybe I should've told you...to be careful to begin with…"

"Yeah...maybe…" She said while also panting, "...but still, to be shoved around by people who don't care and can only give cold glances…" She said as she was fidgeting to herself.

Ok, I'm not sure if she got left behind on purpose or not….but if she did, I retract what I said about her being careful around here, it's the people here that need to be careful of her!

"But aside from that, aren't you worried? You know, about people seeing your arm?" she asked me out of concern.

Because this was modern time Japan, and the beliefs of Demons, Angels, and Gods aren't as heavily influenced here as they were back in Axel, I'm pretty sure no one's gonna find it suspicious or dangerous, especially if you play it off as a cosplay of sorts.

"Oh don't worry, here in Japan, the influences of Gods, Demons, and Angels aren't as...common like it is back in Axel. If someone notices and actually asks me about it, I could technically lie and say that it's part of a costume and play it off. So there's not much of an issue there…" I told her, and to be honest there are really some talented cosplayers in Japan, and since Comic-con and Manga expo's are popular in the media, there is a good chance they'll believe it since imagination and creativity is dead for 70% of Japan's adult population…or at least adults in general...

As we started to pant less, at least I was, Darkness took me by surprise when she held my hand, "Oh! U-uh…" I was caught off guard and couldn't really speak my mind from her sudden action.

Both of us started to blush madly as we held hands, Darkness was the first to speak, "W-well...I think we should...er...stick together at least...I don't feel like getting lost in a place I'm not familiar with ok…" She said with an uneasy tone.

My heart was pounding fast when she said that, the only thing that would come out of my mouth was, "Uh...Um sure…" Man why am I so chicken shit?!

As we sort of stood there in place for what seems like a couple of minutes we sort of got our shit together, for the most part, and continued to go around the city.

I couldn't really focus in what I was saying since I was distracted from Darkness hands. To be completely honest, I didn't think that Darkness would have some gentle and soft hands. I knew that she was a Crusader, I knew that she would grip a sword like there's no tomorrow and swing wildly while missing all hits, I knew she had a death grip that could probably break my hand, but all those things were literally thrown at the window If I focused on her hand. With the way her hands are, you'd think she'd never held a sword before, let alone be the tank of the party...

It wasn't until we reached the shopping centre, that I was able to take my mind off the fact that we were both holding hands.

"What's here?" She said as she was back to being in awe from looking at a shopping centre, Canal City to be specific.

Canal City was a very unique shopping mall since it was part mall, and just like the title suggests, part canal. Me and my brother used to go here back when we were both in High School and if we had any spare time, and usually that small amount of spare time would be stretched into the night since we spent so much time here.

Canal City was is much more beautiful in the night, because that's when all the lights come out and make everything shine making it feel like its own city within the city, especially if you went to its Garden.

It has literally everything anyone could ask for, hotel, arcade, cafes and restaurants, a theatre, and an entire floor reserved for ramen, what more could you ask?

As we entered the Mall, I was already smiling from the sight of it as we were greeted by the fountain in the middle of the mall, doing what it does best as it sprayed water up above in a very intricate pattern revolving around its frame putting people in awe when they see it for the first time.

Suck it Aqua! Nature's Beauty ain't got shit compared to this!

Thankfully, there wasn't as much people here roaming around compared to outside, so there was a good chance that we won't get separated here.

As we walked around, I heard both of our stomachs grumble as we walked in the mall.

"Hey, so...what do you want to eat? I guess this'll be my treat since it's your first time here." I asked Darkness, as we still walked aimlessly.

"Hmmm, I don't really know what they serve here, so I guess the choice is yours?" Darkness said apologetically having to rely on me.

I nodded to myself and smiled to myself as she told me that, "I know a good place to eat, the price is a bit of a stretch since it'll just be the two of us, but it'll be worth it in the end...Let's go!" I said as I guided Darkness towards the elevator.

While we were walking, Darkness spoke up, "I don't think price is a concern isn't it? We did just get 40 million Eris from defeating that….horrible man…" Darkness said as she cringed from the thought if Vanir.

I guess she was right, we did get 40 million Eris since we defeated Vanir, so money shouldn't be much of an iss-

I then stopped walking and realised something I should've thought of in the start…

"Tsukiyo?" Darkness asked since she noticed me not walking anymore..

We have gold coins named Eris back in Axel, in Japan you need Yen or in certain cases, US currency...we don't have either of those…

"Tsukiyo?" Darkness callout to me once again.

I looked back to Darkness who was looking at me confused, "Umm...small problem...they accept a certain form of currency in Japan, so...Eris won't cut it…" I told Darkness, we both had the same look as we stood in the middle of the mall awkwardly as we were now broke and hungry.

Darkness head then shot up as she got an idea, "What if we go to this places Dukes that deals with trades and economics, and we trade our Eris for the currency here in Japan?" Darkness said with full confidence, "Since I am nobility, they should be able to agree with any trade requests, right?"

I was actually really surprised that Darkness got an Idea like this, but sadly Japan doesn't work that way, "While that would work in hindsight, 1. If we were to go to the Ministry of Trade and Economics, that'd be a more than 12 hour trip there since it's halfway across the entire island, 2. Japan doesn't really...how should I say this...They've never heard of anything, or anyone Royal or not back in Axel or the Capitol, and there's a couple reasons why…" I told Darkness shooting her idea down.

"What? They've never heard of us Royals? Why is that?" Darkness asked.

I was a bit hesitant to tell Darkness the truth of Axel, the Capitol and everything. I wouldn't know if I'd be breaking an unwritten rule from the gods, along with the fact that she'll learn that I died just to get to Axel.

I just held off for now and told her that Japan was an isolationist type of country where we keep to ourselves and not involve ourselves with other regions political problems.

For now Darkness bought it and started to complain that being an isolationist hurts the people more than it does help. I agreed with her, even if what I said was a lie.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a very familiar machine that just might be able to help.

As I walked up to the machine, I instantly recognised it and hope to any gods that we watching that this could work. It was a simple coin changing machine where it transferred coin yen into bills.

As I pulled out my Eris pounch, it sort of looked like the Eris could fit into the coin slot, whether or not it'll actually read it as money is beyond me.

The moment I slid the coin into the slot and heard the coin fall in the machine landing on top of countless other coins, the display that originally said 'Please insert coins' now read, 'Yen: 500' (which is 4.60 US.)

While I was holding my breath, closing my eyes and hoping that some bullshit logic would come in, for once it actually worked for me!

When I read the display that said it was 500 yen, I started to rapidly put in Eris' and being the number from 500 up to 7600 Yen (just about 70 US) until I pressed the transfer button where it gave me a 5,000 yen bill, and two 1,000 yen bills.

Darkness took a look at the bills and didn't seem impressed at their form, "Looks fragile, it's gonna be easily damaged or burned in a quest…"

"Well, people have specific cases for currency like this, so it doesn't get easily damaged as you think, but anyhow, now that we have money, let's eat!" I said as guided her to the elevators again with money in hand.

You know, while I didn't think much of an elevator since I rode them countless times, I keep forgetting that literally everything is new to Darkness, so imagine my surprise when she got slightly claustrophobic with minor motion sickness when we were in the elevator…

I'm so glad that we were the only ones in the elevators, excluding the security camera, since Darkness was getting dizzy while gripping onto my arm with that iron grip I forgot about…

Needless to say, I made her lay down on a nearby bench until she got better.

We waited just about a half an hour for Darkness to get back up, and head to the floor of heaven incarnate.

Ramen Stadium, a place with so many choices of ramen, it's almost impossible to have one of each, but since I'm a returning customer with 5 years of ramen experience, I already have a main store to go to, Ichiran Ramen.

It don't even need to be standing near the store itself to recognise the scent of it's ramen…

As we got to the restaurant, I was shocked to see that it was packed to the point where there was a line spanning 1-2 stores down the hall.

Looking at all the other Ramen restaurants, also show that they have a line but not as long as this one…

Darkness spoke up from seeing the long line in each store, "Wow, this place sure is popular…"

These lines are too long and I'm running on very limited time.

I took a glance to a nearby clock that was in the middle a split path, it read 6:50.

At this point, I decided to say fuck it and leave the ramen stadium.

Darkness, surprised with me leaving, asked why we were leaving, "I got another place in mind, not as fancy as but at least the food quality is the same." I said as we headed for the elevator again until I stopped myself and went for the escalators instead.

At least Darkness didn't get motion sickness or claustrophobic, but it did take a while for her to learn how to just step on it quickly and try not to fall off.

By the time we got to the first floor, we left the mall and went just about 4 or 5 blocks down the street where we went to a ramen stall.

It wasn't fancy, it wasn't packed, and surely didn't cost a pretty penny for 2 bowls, but it was honest homemade food from guys who wanted to make them.

As we walked in, the chef noticed us and welcomed up.

"Hey guys, what can I get-" he tried to ask before he stopped and took a look at my arm and shook his head saying, "You cosplayers need to stop making everything look so goddamn realistic in video games and manga, what can I get ya?"

"Hey man, got a first timer over here, never had a bowl before." I said as I pointed to Darkness, "Get her a Hakata standard, and I'll have a Spicy Tobanjan, please." I said as he started to ready the grill and get to work.

The man smiled to himself and cracked his fingers, "Alright, one Spicy Toban for my man and an Ikkoryu Original for the pretty lady with him. Coming right up." Darkness was focused intently on how he made the ramen.

The man noticed Darkness staring intently and stepped a bit to the side giving her a better view of the ramen in the making.

"First time in Japan?" He asked, Darkness got snapped out of her trance and looked at him blankly, before turning to me and saying, "What did he say?"

Hol' up wat?

Darkness can't understand him? Huh…well that's a first for me…

I turned to the man making the ramen and told him that she didn't understand him, in the sense of not understanding Japanese…

The man laughed loudly as he continued making the ramen, "Shit man, now I can't make some of my famous pick up lines! Damn!"

I chuckled at his comment, believe me pal you're not ready for this girl...no one is…

Just about 10-15 minutes later, the man finished both of our Ramen and served it to us, "Here you go guys, enjoy your date." He said as I tried to take my first bite of my ramen only to choke on the chefs comment.

Darkness looked at me with a strange glance, "You ok?" she asked.

I was sort of blushing from the chefs comment and played it off, "Yeah, just a little bit spicier than I remember, I'm good…" The chef smirked at me as he started to make another batch of Ramen.

I got myself a pair of chopsticks and handed Darkness a fork as we ate our ramen.


	43. Home (OVA P2)

Little known fact that not a lot of people know about me, I like ramen...ok, while it doesn't sound like much since almost everyone loves it, but when it comes to me eating it, I'm able to eat it a lot quicker than the average guy/girl, and if it's spicy I can eat 2 whole bowls back to back (I'm a fatass, I know, my brother was the first to point it out.)

For 4 whole years, I was undefeated and was able make a little pocket change out of it from the locals around a ramen stall.

So imagine my surprise when Darkness out ate me when she downed three whole bowls and showed no signs of getting full or sick.

The chef who served us out Ramen was busting his ass laughing on how this turned out, "Hahahaha! Well this isn't what I expected, not by a longshot! I guess the pretty lady has got more than her looks up her sleeve!"

I wasn't able to say much, mainly from the fact that my stomach is literally trying to kill me after all the spices I ate back to back, but if I could I'd probably tell her to slow down.

After Darkness finished her third bowl of Ramen, she wiped her mouth with a nearby napkin and gave the chef her bowl, "Thank you!" She said as she smiled thanking the chef.

"I'm just gonna assume you're down for now, can't eat all my products now can you? Bill's 4000 yen." He said as he started washing Darkness' bowl.

While clutching my stomach trying not to put myself in more pain than I needed to be, I pulled out the 5000 yen and placed it on the table, "Keep the change, come on let's go." I said to Darkness as I stood up and slouched over from holding my stomach.

As much as I love spicy food, I really gotta keep the spice-intake to a minimum, cause right now my gut feels like it's filled with hellfire. (not as worse as Taco Bell though -Konran)

Before we left though, I called over to the chef to ask him the time. As he put the bowl down and checked his wrist watch, he told me that it was just about 9:10.

I thanked the chef as we left and internally became depressed, only 3 hours left…

There's only 1 thing I want-- no, **need** to do left…

I grabbed Darkness' hand once again as I guided her towards the train station. Right now, I don't I was bothered by holding Darkness' hand anymore and I don't think she's bothered by mine, of course her gentle hands always catches me off guard, but after that it just feels...nice…

As we walked to the station in the nighttime, Darkness asked me where we would be going to next, I breathed in deeply and told her, "...Home, we're going to see my family…"

Darkness seemed cheerful in wanting to know my family members and curious to an extent, but me on the other hand...I'm terrified…

I don't know how they'll react when they see me...I've been gone for a couple of months, maybe half a year at this point, so I don't know whether or not if they even live in the same house…

I don't know where else to go with what little time I have left, so all I can do is hope, hope that maybe, just maybe that they're still there.

As we walked to the station and used the last of my money to buy the tickets, the train came right on 9:30 and unloaded the people trying to get home. As we got in the train, it seemed that there was only 5 people left, they were either asleep or on their phones as the door closed and made its way towards the outer area of the main city and into the suburbs.

As the train made its way, Me and Darkness sat on the seats near the doorway. Darkness was fascinated on how fast we were going as she saw the city get smaller slowly as she watched it out the window. My heart was pounding fast as my anxiety and fear grew with each minute that passed to the point where my leg started to tremble getting the attention if nearby passengers as they looked over to me sort of panicking.

I managed to stop my leg from trembling as I held it down using both my hands, and apologised to the other passengers.

Darkness turned towards me and asked what was wrong, she assumed that since I was going to see my family after being away for so long, they'd be more than overjoyed to see me. Sensing that there's almost no point in keeping it a secret anymore, I told Darkness the truth about who I am.

"Darkness...I really don't know how to explain this, and it's ok if you don't believe me but just bear me out ok? I need to say this." I said as I prepared for any possible outside forces trying that will probably try and stop me from telling the truth.

I breathed in and breathed out deeply as I finally told her, "Japan...is at least 2000 years into the future. Axel, and the time period it's in was at least 2000 years ago, and possibly in another reality since magic doesn't exist here, and the way I got there was by dying...I died almost half a year ago to get to Axel where I met up with Eris, who is real, and was given these abilities to defeat the Demon King and his army."

As I finally spoke the truth, I looked around and kept watch for any suspicious or supernatural forces that would've probably tried to kill or silence me for spilling a massive secret that no one alive could realise if they weren't a reincarnated.

Darkness looked at me with confused eyes, "Huh?"

I re-explained myself with more clearer words to make her understand, "Axel is in a different reality from Japan. I lied when you asked for the economics duke or whatever because the concept of Royalty and the Dustiness family doesn't exist here. Gods also exist because I was sent by Eris to go to Axel to kill the Demon King, so did Kazuma. I died trying to protect my mother and was sent by Eris to kill the Demon King." I said slowly and clearly.

It took awhile for her to have those words fully realised before she started to piece things together and be sort of mindfucked.

She stayed silent for a while before making such a loud outburst, "HUH!?" She disrupted the other passengers as they gave her glares from her loud outbursts, she silence herself before pulling me to the side and confirming these things.

"So...you already died...and was sent by Eris...and the fact that you and Kazuma are the only ones with weird names...I...my head hurts…" Darkness said as she rested her head by my shoulders

"Yeah, I know it's a lot to take in, but all of it's true. The main reason why I'm terrified right now from going to see my family is because I died last time I saw them, I don't know how they'll react when I get home, if they're still there…" I explained to Darkness as my fear still lingered.

"Well, whatever happens I'll be here with you, so you don't to face that fear alone, you're an important comrade to me, so…" Darkness' voice started to trail off as she held my hand tightly.

I responded to her by also holding her hand tightly, "Thanks...You should get some sleep in, since we were deep in the city we won't be getting off the train for another 40 minutes."

Darkness did what I suggested as she started to nod off as she leaned her head against my shoulder. I grabbed her left shoulder firmly bringing her closer to me as she took her nap. I'm really glad Darkness is here with me, She does alot for me when I need her the most.

One day...I'm gonna make sure I be there for her when she needs me, that's the least I can do…

As the train went on, sitting in the same spot for 40 minutes as Darkness took her nap on my shoulder, the train reached its final destination as it made its slow stop towards the station.

I shook Darkness' shoulder gently making her wake up, "Hey, we're nearly there, gotta get off the train now."

Darkness groggily got up from where she sat down at and followed me out the train as we continued to walk the rest of the way to my house.

As we walked in the suburbs, where everyone was at this time either asleep or doing last minute chores, I was starting to get this sense of nostalgia since I was walking almost the same path I always walked when I got back from either work or school.

I was home...I recognized almost everything around the neighborhood as we passed by them; The general store where I always bought a bag of chips after shitty work days, the park me and my brother used to play in before we got the playstation from our dad, the mini police station me and my brother got caught in when we started a fight from back in middle school…

Everything around me made me feel at home, there was no fear inside me as we walked by it all...then we came to a very familiar two story house.

The gate around the house was still the sale slightly tan color it was, but it seemed like the door was replaced with a more sturdier bronze looking one to prevent break ins even further.

The trash and recycle bin was left out waiting for the trashmen to come and pick them up.

As I stood there, taking a good long look at the house, I took a deep breath before pushing the buzzer getting the homeowners attention.

I waited a couple of seconds before a voice spoke out from the speaker, "Hello?" the voice asked.

I spoke to the voice hoping that they could open the gate, "Excuse me, but is there a Tsuru Nakano living there? I would like to speak to her."

There was a long pause before the voice replied back, "No, I believe she moved out of the house with her son about 2 months ago, I'm sorry…" The voice out signalling that the speaker disconnected from the call.

I was shattered when I heard that, 2 months late on a reunion...

Darkness walked towards me, but I pressed the buzzer again to talk to the person who lived here after my mom and brother moved out, "Excuse me, but is there any information that you have that could lead me to her, something? Anything?" I said as trying to keep myself together.

The voice came on once again, "I'm sorry, but I don't have anything like that."

I tried once again to try and get something from this stranger, "Did you at least meet her? Did she leave hints where she'd be heading?" I said as I started to get desperate.

The voice spoke out again, but a little irritated this time, "No I haven't met her, please leave it's late." The speaker disconnected once again

Tears were now rapidly flowing down as I clenched my fist and tried to hit the fence to vent out, but was only able to tap it gently as I fell onto my knees and cried to myself.

Darkness also got on her knees as she knelt with me and tried to comfort me from the pain.

It took me about 30 minutes just to get me back on my feet as we continued to walk in my old neighborhood and go...well...somewhere…

We continued to walk until we reached the park where we both sat down on the bench.

I looked at a nearby clock in the corner of the park, it read 11:20.

Just about 40 minutes before we'd be back at Axel, and my final stay at Japan would come to an end.

As I sat there, silent and utterly broken, Darkness spoke up, "Is there anything else you want to do before we go back?"

I stayed silent as I shook my head, "...let's just stay here for the rest of the time…" I managed to say from my raspy voice.

Darkness then started to hold my hand tightly as she spoke softly, "I'm so sorry Tsukiyo…"

"...it's alright…" I said as I sat there emotionless.

"No it's not," Darkness refuted, "You have every right to be sad and hurt, but for this to happen to you the only day you'll be in Japan...it's too cruel…" She said as she tried to comfort me more.

"No...I probably should've expected this from the beginning...I just wanted to be so optimistic, thinking that my mom and brother would still be there, and just wanting to tell them everything that's been happening, the quests, the Demon King Army, the training, you guys, everything… but I guess this is what I get for being too optimistic…" I said as was starting to blame myself for believing in my luck too much…

"Don't blame yourself, none of this is your fault. I had a very good time being in Japan for the first time, everything here is just to shiny, new, and advanced, I've never seen anything like it. It's just so beautiful up close. I'm glad to have spend it with you, even if it was just the two of us." Darkness said as she tried to bring up the positives of this day, "So thank you, Tsukiyo, for showing me an amazing time today."

"Tsukiyo?" a voice said from behind us, a very familiar voice to say the least…

I brought my head up and turned towards the voice that called out my name, what I saw made me pour out even more tears than what I thought was possible.

Standing near one of the corners of the street in casual clothes and sort if short hair was my mother as she adjusted her glasses and took a closer look at her son who supposedly died at least half a year ago.

"Mom…" I said as the tears flowed out of my eyes like a waterfall. It didn't take long for me to hop off of the bench and rush towards her as I gave her a heartfelt hug.

This wasn't a dream or a hallucination, I was able to feel the comforting feeling of being able to be with my mother, even if it was for just 30 minutes.

My mother was able to return the hug back after she felt around my body and confirming that this was a real person, but more importantly her son.

We both broke down in the corner after being away for so long.

After a couple minutes of crying and holding each other tightly, we were able to somewhat have a conversation.

"This...this can't be possible, I saw you get shot in the head in front of me, the coroners even confirmed death when they got there...so how is this possible?" My mom said as we were now sitting on the bench with Darkness on the sidelines curiously peering in.

"I know what I'm about to say sounds crazy and defies all kinds of logic, but you have to believe me ok?" I told her as I began to repeat the same truth I told Darkness multiple times before today.

My mother nodded her head and was taking in everything that I told her, and just like Darkness, she too held her head in pain as logic and anything that makes sense was getting torn down.

"So...you're gonna fight a Demon King and his army to save an alternate reality where magic exists with a group of other adventurers, to save a world?" She said as she tried piecing things together, "Also you've become part demon based off the wish you were given and have a another person living inside your arm?"

"Yeah...all that sounds about right.." I said as my mom recited everything I told her.

"Oh before I forget, this is Lalatina Ford Dustiness, or 'Darkness' as me and my other companions call her." I said as I tried to introduce Darkness to my mother, Darkness got flustered for a moment from me calling her by her full name before giving a small wave.

"H-Hello…" Darkness said sort of shyly as she brought herself in front of my mother.

My mother inspected Darkness for a while before nodding to herself, "You got yourself a fine young lady, make sure to protect her when you guys get married, ok?" My mother said as she held both me and Darkness' hand with a warm smile.

"M-mom! I...we...uh…" I sort of babbled as she said that, Darkness turned towards me asking what she said.

"It's nothing, but you don't need to worry about that Mom, Darkness is a knight with probably the highest defense in the town that we live in, so I don't think I'd need to protect her when the time comes." I said after composing myself

"I don't mean literally protecting her, I mean when she needs you the absolute most, you must be with her and comfort her. If she was more than willing to come with you to even the most dangerous of situations to protect you and your other friends, then she's a keeper in my books. Don't let go of her whatever you do, ok?" My Mom said as she put her hands on the side of my face caressing my cheek.

"don't worry, I won't. She's definitely an important person in our group, and a little bit more important to me." I said to my mother.

My mother then turned to Darkness and started to speak to her, "Now I know you may not be able to understand me based off what my son told me, but please just be there for him. He's a nice boy who works harder than anyone else, but has a hard time expressing himself." She said that last bit a bit louder for me to hear, "I know you're an important person to him, and I might be able to understand that, but please don't hurt him. He's much more fragile than you think on the inside. If you're able to do all of that, then I give you my blessings when the time comes, even if I won't be able see it in person. Thank you."

As Darkness looked at my mother as she pleaded, Darkness was able to smile and accept what she was told as she was able to give her a hug.

It was at this time, that me and Darkness were now glowing and starting to fade out of existence from this reality.

"I guess our time is up, Midnight…." I said to myself.

"Mom, I just want to say thank you for everything that you and Dad have done for me and Takumi. There's so much more that I would like to say, but since we're out of time, thank you is all I can manage, I'm sorry." I said as I began to give my mom one last hug before disappearing.

"It's alright, You go and live life to the fullest. Me and your brother won't forget you at all." My mother said as she smiled and hugged back.

I then realised something before I fully disappeared, "Here take this to the bank! You'll get more than enough with this!" I said as I gave her my pouch, full of Eris, gold coins that'll definitely fetch for a high price in the market.

With that, we disappeared off the face of Japan and came back to Axel…

As the bright light shone from the box and dulled down, both me and Darkness were still at the same spot we were.

Darkness looked around and seemed disappointed, "We're still here? Huh, probably didn't work...Oh! Tell me what was that comment about being an almost perfect oppor- T-Tsukiyo! What's wrong!?" Darkness said as she saw me with tears falling down my face at a rapid pace with my arms out in front of me as if I was hugging a ghost.

"I...don't know…." I said.

All I could feel right now was a gentle hint of warmth from my arms, I didn't feel like putting them down…

"I don't know if I'm crying from sadness or joy…" I tried to explain.

I wasn't sure what I experienced in Japan, I can't remember anything that happened or how long I was there for but, it felt like the lingering feeling of being homesick was gone…

If what I'm thinking right now actually happened when we got there, then that makes the trip worth it regardless of me not being able to remember it.

Vanir came from behind the counter and took the box and disintegrated it with some of his magic, "Oh well tis a shame, the box of lost magic shall stay lost to man and demonkind." He said as he walked back to the counter, "Thou can leave if there is nothing to discuss anymore."

Just like what Vanir said, we left and headed back to the mansion where both of us don't remember anything that happened in Japan, but we at least felt a little bit more comfortable with being with ourselves.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

And now I'm done with both parts of this OVA.

Since school just started, I will be going back to single uploads only up until spring break. Sorry for the delay last week, but like I said last week I wanted to rewrite half the chapter to make it flow better. Tell me if the flow of the 2 part OVA was good or bad, I'm still wondering if it's good enough.

Also KH3 comes out in less than 2 weeks, holy shit I can't believe that's it's actually coming out after 15 actual years…

Btw, thanks for 100 story followers...

 **Questions:**

 _DxHologram:_

 _Does Kosuke have the same kind of money issues Dante has in the DMC-verse?_

-Not really no, if you think about it, the only thing Kosuke needs to take care of in terms of money is just rent and plumbing. Our famous Pizza hobo Dante has issues with money because he's spends it on pizza, lighting, rent, gas, plumbing, and paying Trish and Lady. Kosuke only has Zofia for now, and since both of them live in the store, money isn't' much of an issue. Believe it or not, there was someone on Reddit who actually calculated the amount of money Dante spends on pizza, it turned out to be somewhere around 40K US per year, I think.

 _Saru_

 _Has Kosuke ever met the Demon General, and is Vanir aware of his existence?_

-Both questions, solid no...for now…

 _Jenson_

 _Will there be moments from Kosuke and Tsukiyo where they become similar to Dante and Nero?_

-Yes, it might be in Vol. 5, but it definitely will happen in Vol 7.

 _Zack_

 _Is Tsukiyo going to absorb something from Hans, like he did from Vanir and Beldia? He would also like a reminder of what he absorbed from Beldia._

-Now I can't say for sure if he'll be able to absorb something from Hans because I haven't thought that far and don't want to spoil it because next week is the start of Vol. 4 so sorry, as for the other thing, back when Tsukiyo and Darkness fought Beldia, Tsukiyo got the ability to absorb energy from demons when he absorbed Beldia's dark energy and used it for blowback before he got the Blue Rose. That was when he initially unlocked it.

 **Reviews:**

Both reviews from DxHologram from Jan. 5th: Don't worry, the sickness was only minor when I thought it'd be a lot worse. I won't take a break though, I'm a college student which means that we're supposed to overwork ourselves from work until we get too lazy to do things on the weekends.

Review from Gen2324 from Jan 5th: I'mma be honest with you chief, I haven't seen that anime so I have no idea who Hayate is, but yes Kosuke does have no regrets of killing himself and coming to the Konosuba verse since he can be free and kill Demons with not much trouble.

Review from 13thRebels from Jan 14: Thanks for leaving a review and reading my Fic. I'm glad you're enjoying it and hope to read more of it especially since I'll be starting Vol. 4 (season 2) next week. Hope you enjoy those as well.

Both reviews from Zidin46 from Jan 18: Thanks for the review and being very brave saying that you're fine with the Darkness ship, you might be pissing off about 70% of the community by saying that. I'm just joking, and don't worry about people discouraging me about the story, if they even do, because negative reviews with nothing helpful to say doesn't affect me at all since I'm pretty edgy to not let them get to me. It's just my own opinions that sometimes get to me.


	44. The fuck is a Chunchunmaru?

Mother. Fucking. Spring.

Hell yes.

You do not know how fucking happy I am being in the springtime. I don't know if spring came earlier from those snow sprites we sort of killed way back in the fall or not, but if it did, then I am going to go back there in the fall and murder every one of those snowball puff things to make sure Winter only lasts one month…

But away from all of that monologuing to myself, it's been just about 2 and a half months since the debt was cleared and about 1 month since I finished the mandatory quests from the capitol.

Of course I took a couple of weeks off of adventuring after having to do it for about 15 hours straight and getting sick, literally and metaphorically, of it. Now that my breaks over, the party should be able to continue doing more quests after getting by winter.

'But Tsukiyo, aren't you loaded with just about 34 million Eris? Why do you need to adventure?' Well there little bobby, the thing is, is that Kazuma and Aqua weren't too happy with me literally giving away 5 million Eris to the Elder and the rest of the Villagers for taking me in (at least the Elder and Karin did). So in a sense they sort of banned me from taking the rest of the money.

Now of course, this is something I can consider being justified since I did give away like an eighth of our earnings, so I took it upon myself to not rely on the rest of the 34 million that was left and make my own money from quests that I would do in the meantime.

Needless to say, they wanted to take back what they said after realising I was serious when I started doing jobs on my own, but I refused their offer. If we technically spit the money up about 5 ways, it'd be just about 8 million each and I'd have just about 3 mil. left, but since I'm still gonna continue doing quests and 'adventuring', 3 million isn't really a lot to have.

Some of the quests that I did on my own, of course weren't as easy as I expected them to be and doesn't pay as much as I wanted them to be, but I was at least doing something to sort of level up even if those exp. points are very small.

It's also a good thing that Megumin and Darkness would help out when they came along with me to do some quests, even if they sometimes last about 5 minutes (Because tactical nuke) or an hour (because meat shield)...

Notice how I only mentioned Darkness and Megumin…

Because of the 40 million Eris that we got when we defeated Vanir, but not really, Kazuma and Aqua had been acting like hot shit for the last 2 months because they're fucking loaded.

Aqua is now acting like a snobby bitch, which you can easily mistake her for acting normal, while Kazuma is a lazy prick while staying in the heated chair of procrastination and bullshittery called the Kotatsu.

Oh look, even as I continue to monologue to myself, Darkness and Megumin are trying to drag Aqua out of the couch as she continues to cling onto it like a fucking cat.

"No! It's cold outside! I don't wanna go!" Aqua complained as she held onto the couch for dear life.

As I sat there drinking my tea with my gear on, Oh! One thing to mention too, I for once actually got some armour on with some of the money I got from the quests recently.

I managed to get a chainmail shirt to fit under a new leather overcoat along with some shin guards too...What? Were you expecting some big ass beefy boi 'I'm the motherfucking juggernaut' style of armour? Ha! Sorry to disappoint but style takes top priority when it comes to armour even if it comes with tons and tons of flaws...

Ok, back to what I was saying, as I was sitting there sipping my tea as I watch Darkness and Megumin try to pry Aqua from her couch, Kazuma popped his head out of the Kotatsu like the fucking mole he is while leaving a comment as he got even fucking lazier, "You know, I don't know what all the fuss is about, Going out to do some adventuring after we got loaded? I'm not sorry to say this, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna stay here for the time being so you guys go have fun! Ok? Ok." He then popped his head back in the Kotatsu.

Megumin then got serious and made Aqua face Kazuma who was probably huddled in the warm chair of doom, "Look Aqua! Do you want to become like him?! Like a worthless person?" I mean she already is worthless so...maybe?

Aqua gazed at the Kotatsu and shuddered for disgust, "Yeah, I'd rather not end up like him but at least take care of the even lazier person before coming to me!" She screeched while still holding on tightly to the couch.

I guess it was time for me to step in just to see if I could pry Aqua out or just be a dick to her, probably both…

"Hey Aqua, I'm gonna burn the sofa if you don't let go…" I said as I pulled out my Red Queen and started to rev it up.

Aqua smirked at me, "Ha! It doesn't matter if you burn this! We're rich, we can always buy a better one! Nice try demon!" She said as she became smug.

"Huh, you're right...I'll be back…" I said as I walked into the Kitchen towards the beer/wine rack where Aqua had her cherished wine stored.

I came back to the room where I opened the wine bottle, shoved a used cloth in there, and then started to light the rag on fire.

Kazuma poked his head out again and saw me do this, "Hey! Are you fucking Crazy!? Don't make a molotov out of our wine in the house! You're gonna kill us all!" He shouted as he still didn't move from his spot.

Aqua instantly letting go of the couch and started to run towards me while bawling, "NOT MY 500,000 ERIS WINE!" I was able to keep the molotov out of arm's reach for the moment, "Darkness, Megumin Now!" I shouted

Aqua then realised that she had fell into my trap card as she got banished to the shadow real- I mean, got pinned down from Darkness and Megumin.

I doused the wrag with water and put it out as I recapped it and put it back, One down, one to go.

As I walked up to Kazuma and looked down in him, literally, I asked him "Now...we can do this the easy way or the hard way...your choice." Darkness and Megumin were right next to me as they were going to help me with him.

Now while Kazuma may look like a weak, fragile, spineless weeb with basically no talent, even though all those are true, he's a cunning bastard sometimes…

"Come on now Kazuma," Darkness boldly tried to get close to Kazuma as she said that, "Why don't you help me and Tsukiyo with a dungeon like that one-" She got cut off as Kazuma attacked Darkness as he casted freeze on her neck.

" _'Freeze'_ " He shouted as Darkness covered her neck and fell back from the cold, without me even noticing he grabbed Megumin's wrist tightly as he casted another spell, " _'Drain Touch'_ " He shouted as Megumin shouted in pain as her mana got drained while falling back hitting her head.

Kazuma sneaked back into his Kotatsu and basically one shotted two party members.

"This serves as your one and only warning, come back when you're stronger!" He cockily said inside the Kotatsu.

The cunning bastard…

As I helped Darkness and Megumin up from the ground, I had a great idea, "Darkness come here for a moment…" I told her, while she did come over to me what she didn't expect was me carrying her bridal style as I walked over to the Kotatsu.

"T-t-t-Tsukiyo! What…!" Darkness said as she got flustered and sort of held on tightly.

Now that I have Darkness, I can do my plan.

Since Kazuma loves the heat of the Kotatsu so much, why not give him more…

I was now standing on top of the Kotatsu while Carrying Darkness, who was surprisingly not as heavy as I thought, and was starting to make the Kotatsu sink down onto Kazuma.

Just like I planned, Kazuma's arms and legs were starting to flail outside, he popped his head out again as he started to panic, "Stop! Stop! Stop! Ok, I get it...I'll get out! Can't...Breathe…!"

Before I knew it, Darkness was starting to pant heavily when looking down at Kazuma squirming under the Kotatsu.

"Hey, Hey, Tsukiyo...you think you could do that to me, it's looks pretty pain-" I just dropped her at this point before she could even finish her sentence, she made a moan she hit the floor making a pretty heavy thud, "Ah! You're so mean~" Darkness said as she enjoyed it.

I know I sound like a broken record and as much as hate reminding myself saying it, I feel like It's never gonna end, so tell me…'Why do I like her again…?'

I stood there for another couple of minutes before the doors were busted out and Sena came right through, "Tsukiyo Nakano, where are you! We need to...talk…" Her voice started to trail off as she saw what we were doing.

"What are you…" She tried to say, but was slowly losing the will to finished her sentence as she saw a sort of passed out Kazuma and a turned on Darkness from literally being dropped on her ass.

"Oh hey, don't mind us, we're just discipling a certain individual…" I said as I stepped off the Kotatsu finally giving Kazuma some air.

I grabbed Kazuma's almost lifeless arm and dragged him out of the very bent Kotatsu, but before he was fully out, he grabbed my arm and used his skill on me, " _'Drain Touch'_ " he wheezed out.

While I thought this would have really fucking hurt, source from Megumin literally 5 minutes ago, I was unaffected by it in the slightest.

Seeing that it didn't hurt me as much as it did Megumin, I gave Kazuma's wrist the death grip as I pulled him out.

I gave him an uncaring look, while he tried to pry my arm from his wrist. When he saw that it was useless and gave up, he looked me dead on the eyes with a nervous smile while trembling, "It's just a prank bro, don't take this too seriously…"He said while sort of trying to squeeze out of my grip.

"You're lucky that Sena is here, I definitely would have thrown you out the window at this point…" I said to Kazuma while letting go of his wrist and dropping him on the ground.

"So, what do you want?" I asked Sena who was able to recompose herself and answer my question.

"A large pack of Lizard Runners are suddenly appearing and are terrorizing nearby houses and farms. While we do have adventurers fighting them, we suspect that a lizard queen has appeared, so we would like your help in defeating them." she said as she bowed down in front of me.

"I apologise for bringing this to you especially after everything that's happened in the past, we would still-" I cut her off before she was able to finish her sentence.

"Don't worry, I got it. Water under the bridge, c'mon let's do this." I said as I walked passed Sena and towards the door. I already understand what she's trying to say, so I'll just spare her the time and just accept it.

"Thank you, Tsukiyo Nakano...While the lizard runner aren't as dangerous as regular monster they're causing all sorts of trouble outside of Axel. So it's better to deal with this as fast as possible."

"Got it, alright guys let's go…" I said as I looked behind me and saw Kazuma and Aqua trying to sneakily run out the back.

I used my snatch ability to grab the back of Kazuma's shirt and drag him back here as Megumin and Darkness chased after Aqua.

I put Kazuma in a chokehold as he tried to squirm out, "You know I was considering doing most of the work just to make sure no one got hurt, but it looks like I'm just gonna make you and Aqua do all the work!" I said as I started to vent.

Why can't we just work as a normal team for once without it being a life or death situation….

After an hour and a half of forcing Aqua to come along while choke holding Kazuma outside, we stopped by a smith shop where Kazuma got a new sword to use instead of his janky short sword that's duller than a spoon.

And Lo and behold, because Kazuma is a weeb and is in a fantasy world where logic just says fuck you, he tried to get himself a bootleg Katana. Of course, I had to help him by letting the smith take a look at the Yamato. Saying that the smithy was speechless from it's craft was an understatement and a half since he spent a week or two trying to perfect it and for the most part, while it isn't as tall, sharp, or infused with the demon essence of big daddy sparda it's still a good sword to use.

"Oh wow! While it's not as cool or sharp as Tsukiyo's sword, it's pretty good in terms of quality." Kazuma said as he drew it and inspected it's sharpness.

"While it's not as perfect as the one previously shown, it's the best I can do. Forgive me, but please let me have a glance at it once again! A weapon like that only comes in once in a century, there will be nothing like it!" The smith begged me as his eyes sparked in amazement.

I sighed as I summoned the Yamato and gave it to him to inspect it for the literal 50th time this month…

"In all my years of being a smith in both the capitol and Axel, I can say without a doubt that a sword like this could be unstoppable in both the wrong and right hands. Tell me again, where did you acquire this sword?" He asked as he used his mini magnifying scope to take a closer look.

While I would've told him about it being a sword from ancient times, Vergil, who was silent for just about the entire month, came out of my arm and recited the entire history of Sparda as he was nerding out.

"Right, right..Hey kid, here's a name tag for the sword, that's all you need for full ownership of it." The smith said as he handed a tag to Kazuma and returned the Yamato to Vergil as he fused back into my arm.

"Ahh! This is so cool! What do I name it? The Masamune? Murasama? Awww! So many choices!" Kazuma said as he racked his brain with glee.

It was at this time that Megumin spoke up, "Chunchunmaru.." She said.

Hold on, why do I get the feeling that, that word is some kind of racial slur towards the chinese...

"What what maru?" Kazuma asked as he turned to Megumin with visible confusion.

"Name it Chunchunmaru." Megumin said carelessly.

"Uh...No...I'm not gonna give it such a silly name! Besides, for a weapon of this quality, it needs to sounds badass! Like Tsukiyo's Yamato! That sounds powerful! I'm not gonna give it a silly…" Kazuma as unaware of the fact that Megumin had already placed the tag onto the grip of the sword as she hugged it tightly.

Kazuma looked visibly disappointed as he saw the tag burn it's name onto the grip; Chunchunmaru the bootlegged ass Racist Katana made for a weeb named after a weeb, now that fits…

Kazuma got on his knees and looked at his sword in disbelief, "How...how could you…"

I grabbed the collar of Kazuma's shirt and dragged him out of the shop as we left the shop, "Ok we're done here, let's do some actual work…" I said as Kazuma looked a bit soulless while mumbling 'Chunchunmaru.'

While we have one problem completely lifeless and dull, we have another frustrating problem to deal with…

"No! I don't wanna, it's still cold outside! Let's do it Tomorrow! Tomorrow ok!?" Aqua complained as she was holding onto the doors of our mansion as if her life depended on it.

Even with me and Darkness pulling her legs, both the strongest members of the party, Aqua still had an iron grip as she held onto those doors.

It was at this time that Kazuma spoke up after his soul returned to his body from the Chunchunmaru incident, "Let's just leave her here, she's gonna continue to fight tooth and nail if we try and bring her with us." Kazuma, for the first time in a long time, made an actually useful suggestion, "We have Tsukiyo and Darkness with us, we should be fine even without Aqua."

Aqua eyes lit up as soon as she heard that, "Really!? You heard him, let go of this goddess, neither of you are worthy of this goddess' blessing! Scram!" Aqua said as she started to get cocky and big headed.

Both me and Darkness let go of Aqua as she sort of fell face first onto the ground, and in less than an second she was able to get up perfectly fine and rush inside the mansion while peeking her head outside through the doors.

"Hmmm...You know since this'll be our first quest in a long time, how about we reward ourselves with some hot pot! How does that sound?" Kazuma said cheerfully as he started to think of the food before we even started the quest…

"Ok, well...this is really you're first quest after a long time, me, Darkness, Megumin had been doing quests for the past 2-3 weeks...so…" I added in to correct Kazuma. He looked surprised for the moment when I said that, "Wait what? Really?" He asked.

"I mean you were living in the Kotatsu 90% of the time so you didn't really come with us when we started back up…" I continued to add in, Kazuma just ignored what I said and continued to think about the food, but I will give him some credit since I really want some hot pot now…

"Alright well, I guess you can count me in on that, been a long time since I've had got pot. I could go for some after we finish the quest." I said backing up Kazuma's request but what I didn't realise was that Kazuma was giving me a slight wink as he told that.

Oh...I get it…

"Alright then, I guess it's a deal then. We'll go after we finish then…" I said as I started to head towards the direction of the Quest, "Come on, Darkness, Megumin, let's go before the Lizard runners start to do some actual damage." The both of them started to walk with me and Kazuma as Aqua started to complain.

"W-wait, shouldn't we get the ingredients for the hot pot first? I mean, I can prepare it for the meantime so when you guys get back we can share it as a party!" Aqua shouted as she saw us leave

"I think I know a place for hot pot. Me and Father went there once, the quality is almost unmatched in terms of taste…" Darkness said loud enough for Aqua to hear, "I'll make a reservation for us before we leave."

"Are you guys really gonna leave me here!?" Aqua said as she started to cry.

"Take care of the house for us!" The four of us said as we continued walking ignoring Aqua's cried.

"Guys wait up! Don't leave me behind!" Aqua finally broke as she got her staff and ran after us with tears in her eyes. Hook, line, and fucking sinker…

As we finally got to the place where Sena told us to go, we got a glimpse not only a giant group of lizard runners, that sort of reminded me of chocobos for some reason, but it was a fucking horde of them running.

Based off what she told us, since all of the Lizard runners are competing to become the King Lizard, there should be just about 2 completely different looking lizards that stand out from the rest.

As I tried to look closer, all I could see was just a mixture of dark green, brown, green-blue lizards, none of them stood out in the slightest…

Kazuma was able to climb a giant tree to get a vantage point, just like me, he also couldn't see a difference in the mob of runners until he saw a slightly pinkish lizard with some kind of horn on its head.

Kazuma is the only one with the 'snipe' ability, and since we're probably more than 500 meters from the lizards, this will have to be in him as the rest of us are on standby.

"Hey! I think I see the king runner! He's probably the biggest one out of all the small ones there!" Kazuma called out, and as I took a look again, there definitely was a lizard runner a lot bigger than the rest, so I guess it's safe to assume that it might be King.

"You think you snipe 'em from up there? It should save us a lot of time, if we get them without them knowing we're here!" I called out to Kazuma

"I should be able to! Just give me some time…" Kazuma said as he started to line up some shots over towards the lizard runners.

"Hey! There's no point in firing from a long range if they're so far out! Here let me bring them in closer!" Aqua said as she started to chant some random spell.

I quickly ran up to Aqua and covered her mouth while trying to disrupt her spell in progress, "No! No, no, no, no, no! You! You do not need to do anything!" I said while I struggled to stop Aqua, but it seems that her spell was already finished as a dark red rune appeared below us on the ground.

"God Dammit Aqua!" Kazuma shouted from the vantage point, "Now they're coming straight for us!"

I grabbed my hair and pulled them in fucking anger, "Oh my fucking god…" I said to myself, "Oh my fucking god Aqua, you literally cannot be this fucking stupid to be able to pull shit like this and think that it's a good idea! I'm asking you seriously, are you or are you not mentally fucking retarded?!" I said as I grabbed her hair and made her face me instead of trying to look away as if she didn't do anything wrong.

Aqua started to get teary eyed as she started to throw a tantrum while flailing on the ground, "Oh well excuse me! I just wanted to get this quest over with and have hot pot with you guys! But Ok, I get it! We're just going to get in a bad situation like the last couple times, so it doesn't matter just get it over with ok!?"

"You fucking…" I sighed as I didn't feel like argueing or losing more brain cells, "Megumin start chanting your spell now, I'll try and pick them off!" I said as pulled out my Revolver and started shooting.

While Megumin chanted her spell, nothing happened she finished it "Huh!? I don't have enough mana!" She said as she started to walk back from fear of probably getting trampled.

Dammit Kazuma, you just had to drain her earlier…

"Dammit...Uh...Darkness! Shield Megumin from incoming Lizard runners, she's the most fragile of us!" I ordered Darkness, but I guess she was more than happy to be a meat shield since she already did so without needing me to tell her.

"Oh those lizard runners look very strong, and there's more than a hundred of them too!" Darkness said with a happy tone.

The runners were starting to get too close, I didn't have a choice other than use Darkness as a meat shield.

As the runners were about to hit us dead on, they seemed to have sway towards our right and miss us completely hitting the tree Kazuma was on.

"Got it!" Kazuma yelled out from the vantage point, "How you do like them apples you princess running bi- whooa!" Since the lizard runners swayed towards the tree it collided with it making Kazuma lose his balance, and in a matter of a couple of seconds he fell where we all definitely heard a pretty nasty crunch sound.

Megumin was the first to rush over to Kazuma when he fell down, "Kazuma? Hey, Kazuma are you okay!? Uh...Aqua, we might need your healing magic! Kazuma fell down and his head's in a weird position…"

Since the lizard runners were now running away from where we were, we were able to head to where Kazuma fell and uh...yeah he's...um..he's fucking dead…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Nothing new to say, Resident Evil 2 remake came out and it looks pretty good. Just gotta wait 4 more day for KH3 and almost 2 months for DMC V.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta swap out my car battery since it's frozen. Wish me luck.

There was only 2 reviews this past week, but there were no questions or anything I could respond to...


	45. A s c e n d e d A s s h o l e s

As Kazuma laid in the ground with his head now in a normal position instead of having it look like he needs an exorcist, Aqua was concentrating her magic on him for the resurrection spell to work.

For the past 10 minutes, we've been waiting and so far Kazuma still hasn't regained his consciousness and most of us were starting to get a bit worried.

It wasn't until Aqua's sudden outburst that we snapped out of spacing out or focusing on a dead Kazuma that we sort of got an idea of what was going on.

"What kind of nonsense are you saying!? Get back here, level up, defeat the demon king, and return me back to heaven you useless Hikki-NEET!" Aqua shouted angrily as she talked to herself? Talked to spirit Kazuma?

Aqua stayed silent as she continued to focus on Kazuma's head, her mood made a quick 360 as she started to panic from what she heard, "H-hey! Wait! What are you saying!"

It was at this time that Megumin spoke up to ask what was going on, "Kazuma said he wants to resurrect and start a new life! He can't do that! I'm still out here!" Aqua said panickingly as she tried to persuade Kazuma to come back.

"Uh….Hmmm...Oh! Kazuma if you don't come back Tsukiyo gonna shoot your dick!" Aqua said as she tried to reason.

Ok, let's see if I can reason with Aqua, "Aqua...shut up…" I said to her as I smacked her in the side of the head.

After the incident of killing 4 guards back in the village, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to hold a gun up to a person, regardless of them being evil or not. I'd rather not re-experience that amount of fear and anxiety probably for...the rest of my life?

"K-Kazuma! Come back quick! Darkness said that she's gonna draw on your face with a marker! Oh no! She's drawing vulgar slurs, oh the horror!" Aqua faked as her very very poor attempt of persuading Kazuma played out.

Alright well, I guess it's time to say goodbye to Kazuma...lucky bastard made it out of this world before I did…

Surprisingly though, Megumin, who was the 2nd closest person to Kazuma, actually brought out a marker (or at least a plume) and was actually about to draw on Kazuma...

Aqua also noticed what I was seeing and had the same reaction, "Megumin are you really gonna draw...Hey what are you, why are taking his…!?...M-m-m-megumin!? What are you doing!?…" Aqua said as she started to get both embarrassed and possibly scarred.

I looked over to what Megumin was doing and- OH MY FUCKING...SHE TAKING OFF HIS…!

 **WHERE THE FUCK IS THE FBI, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS REVERSE LOLI RAPE SCENE!!**

"Kazuma! Kazuma! Get back here now, Megumin is…! Ugh...I can't say it!! Eris please! Open the door, hurry! I beg of you for Kazuma's own dignity!" Aqua said as she was now covering her eyes. Darkness did the same as she made a yelp while starting to blush and turn away.

I also turned around not wanting to see...what was going on…

I spoke loud enough for Kazuma to probably hear, "Kazuma, it might be time to come back, we need the FBI to open the fuck up!!"

A couple minutes has passed until most of us were able to hear someone gasp for air, so I carefully peaked from where I was looking at only to see a now alive Kazuma, pants on, with a glaring bright red Megumin who threw the marker away and got off of Kazuma.

"What did you do to me?" Kazuma said in a serious voice, as he looked at Megumin with a serious gaze as he checked his body or anything weird or unusual.

Megumin looked at him with an unchanged glare, "Kazuma...don't pull jokes like that ever again. I'll do something _much_ worse next time, ok?" Megumin said as her voice was very serious.

Kazuma looked at me and Aqua giving us a gaze asking what she did to him, "Don't look at me! Ask Megumin herself!" Aqua said as she started to blush.

"I didn't see anything, but damn did the FBI miss an opportunity to stop...whatever the fuck that was…" I said as the image of Megumin pulling Kazuma's pants down while holding a pen was eternally burned into most of our brains…

Megumin finally spoke up after being either mad, sad, or embarrassed for the time Kazuma was dead, "How's your head? Anything feel weird?" she asked.

Kazuma inspected his head by tilting it side to side and feeling where he thought he landed on, "No, everything seems fine for now…" He said after turning his head in every direction to see if there was any problems.

"But still," Aqua spoke up, "It's amazing to see that you're fine after that fall. You're head reminded me of something from 'The Exorcist'. You're injury was really serious, so I guess you won't be adventuring for the next two weeks." Aqua explained as Kazuma visibly turned pale as he probably imagined what his dead body looked like.

"Ok, I think we should just head back for the day, we already had one person die so if that isn't a sign to go back I don't know what is. Megumin, Aqua, you should probably help Kazuma back just incase, I'll go turn in the quest, the lizards runners are gone and the queen runner is dead." I said as I got up and started to head towards the Tavern.

"Oh...wait for me…" Darkness said as she got up from squatting down for so long and shakily walk up to me.

"My, My Darkness~ You seem to really be clingy to Tsukiyo these days! I wonder if you too are becoming a couple~!" Aqua teased her as she made assumptions.

Kazuma, although he just got back up from dying, decided to join in on the fun, "Aqua! Don't assume things like that, you might make our Young Lady embarrassed! I apologise Madam Lalatina, please forgive this child's insolent mouth, we don't mean to pry into your personal life!"

Instead of retorting and denying Kazuma's and Aqua's claim, Darkness responded completely differently than what a lot of us were expecting, "You...really think so…?" Darkness shyly said as she made a faint smile.

Aqua and Kazuma were taken back from her reaction and looked very surprised.

we sort of stood there awkwardly until we each went our ways with not much to say after that….

The trip to the Tavern was beyond awkward…

The both of us didn't speak to each other much, and if we did, it eventually got awkward as our voices trailed off to the point where it turned into a mumble.

It wasn't until we left the Tavern after getting the pay that Darkness brought up an...interesting question, "Hey...do we really look like a couple?"

I was wondering when she'd bring that up, especially after Aqua joked about it earlier…

"Ummm, I don't...uh, know...I've never really thought about...um 'Us' like that…." I asked with my heart starting to beat faster from her question.

She looked like a mix of both sad and disappointed after I responded to her, I had to think of something to not make her feel as bad, "B-but I mean it in a good way you know! I mean, back where I come from, I'm pretty sure there were almost zero girls that were sort of into me and asked me of they wanted to go out." I said on the fly as I revealed a bit of my past to Darkness.

I've never really had a girl that I liked back in Japan, of course there were some that I thought 'wow, she looks really pretty' or 'man, she seems like a nice person' but nothing was really felt Genuine to me so I never bothered.

Of course a Genuine relationship wasn't the only thing holding me back, there was also 2 things that I feared that always got in the way if I really thought about getting in a serious relationship and that's saying the simple yet intimidating phrase of "Do you want to go out?" and the stress of what comes after those words.

Saying "Do you want to go out?" already sounds stressful enough as a whole, but when I think about what happens next after that puts me in a constant spiral of asking "What if…?" questions.

What if I get rejected? What if we start out strong in the beginning, but fall flat later on? What if I disappoint? What if I mess things up for the both of us?

The "What if's" constantly flood my mind to the point where I start to get discouraged and sort of fear the idea.

This time around is a lot different since for once, there's an actual girl that likes me for who I am and is interested. The only problem is...myself…and it's the stupidest problem to deal with...

"I see…" Darkness said to herself as she gave herself a small smile

We finally made it back to the Mansion after our trip to the Tavern to turn in our quest, and it wasn't even 5 minutes after we got back just to see Kazuma streaking around in just a towel shouting and acting pissed.

"Where did Megumin go!? Where is she! Ooooh! When I get my hands on her she's gonna really pay for this!" Kazuma shouted his head off as I sort of noticed a tattoo like drawing on his lower stomach.

" **'Holy Sword Excalibur'** my ass! I'm gonna publicly shame her with my _'Steal'_! Just you wait Megumin! I'm gonna strip you of your innocence!" Kazuma said as he stomped off going wherever he came from…

Alright well, that was a thing...I'm just not gonna question it…

I walked back out of the mansion and headed towards the Tavern, maybe I'll just eat by myself for today…

The next morning was...fucking annoying….

It was fucking morning, and Kazuma was still shouting and cursing saying that he'll be shaming Megumin or do x, y, and z to her to get back at her and this lasted for 2 hours…

"I'm gonna make her beg for mercy! That loli bitch thinks that she's safe just because she's a girl!? Oh no she isn't! She's gonna really regret writing that on my-" I shut Kazuma up by covering his mouth while trying to strangle him in the process, "Kazuma, no offense but if you continue to bitch and moan using the words: "Megumin", "Bitch" and "Shame", I will personally put you in a coma if you don't feel like shutting the fuck up, ok?"

When I let go of Kazuma after he stopped screaming his head off, he seemed to have ignored what I just told him and continued to shout about Megumin.

Ok Kazuma now I'm starting to get really sick of your shit!

I tackled Kazuma onto the ground and Started to choke him trying to get him to shut up.

Darkness spoke up in a very cheerful voice, "Hey, that looks fun! Can you do that to me next? Please?" This only made me choke Kazuma even harder…

At this time, all of us were able to hear the front doors open loudly as it distracted us from doing what we're doing.

Kazuma removed my hands from his throat as he stomped over to the door, "You made a big mistake coming back here, now you'll have to pay with your panties! _'Steal'_!" Kazuma shouted as he moved his hands to what we thought was Megumin coming back…

...except it wasn't…

As Kazuma's hand shome with light that probably blinded him everytime he used it, as it dimmed down to show it's content, what we saw wasn't Megumins panites as he aimed for but a black and white mask with the roman number for 3…

"How Rude!" A man's voice rang out in the hallway, "Moi only wanted to speak to thou for a business proposition and this is how thou treats moi? Shameful….fufufu…" Vanir said over exaggeratedly as he walked in with his body sort of chipped and cracked with his mask removed.

"But Moi thanks thou for taking the part of a bellhop, the role suits thou well!" He said uncaringly as he walked in the living room.

Now, I'm not gay by any means, I like women, I like the oppai's of greatness, I like being normal….but….goddamn, Vanir is a fucking hunk when his mask is off….

"Moi gives his thanks for the Compliment Young Halfling, but sadly Moi isn't interested…" Vanir said as he gave a wink to me

Fuck I forgot about is mind reading bullshit...

Aqua started to get rabies as he stepped closer to Kazuma to take back his mask, "Why are you here?" she asked "My Barrier should be impossible for things like yourself to get through!"

Vanir looked over where Aqua was and laughed to himself, "Oh that paper thin barrier out there? Thou could mistake it for a priestess in training, tis a shame that someone of thou's position and power could create a sham like that and call it a masterpiece!" Vanir said as he acted smug and argued with Aqua.

"My oh my Mister Devil, you say that the barrier was a sham yet your body looks like it's on it's breaking point, it'd be a shame if someone were to exorcise you~" Aqua said cockily as she held her hands up and started to chant

"This body is nothing but a husk, a puppet of dirt for thou to use as Moi's real body resides in Hell. Anything can break dirt and dust, it's not an impossible task…" Vanir retorted

It was at this time that Darkness started to hide behind me and not want to be seen or at least see Vanir. Vanir must've sensed this as his head instantly turned to where me and Darkness was, and each step forward he made to us was one step backwards Darkness made to get away from him.

"Fufufu, oh thou is too adorable…" Vanir said as he bent over to try and face Darkness head on, "But Moi must thank you for the negativity, it's such a snack."

He stood back up as he headed towards Kazuma, "Moi would like to play more, but Moi is only here for business with the unusually lucky one, but young halfling, have you discovered you're newly stolen power from Moi?" Vanir asked

"Well not re-" I wanted to say but Vanir and his fucking clairvoyance cut me off before I could speak, "Don't answer that, Moi already knows you gave up after a month...Thou really has no patience doth thou?"

I spent an entire month of thinking what I stole from him and tried to activate it at some point of the day only to be disappointed trying every method I could think of. It doesn't even help that the skill isn't even on the skill list which makes me think he was fucking with me for a whole month...

"Moi could tell you what it is you stole, but seeing thou struggle is much more entertaining…" Vanir said as he chuckled to himself.

Surprisingly Vergil came out of my arm and unsheathed the Yamato towards Vanir's neck as he spoke sternly, "You know, I'm getting really sick of your attitude! How about I do you a favor and find you in hell myself!"

"Oh! Moi was waiting for you to come out again HardBoiled Hunter, is Thou's mind alright after the fated encounter?" Vanir jokingly brought up as he didn't feel threatened whatsoever with the Yamato at his neck.

So context for these two; Back when I was still on a break from the Mandatory quests, I sometimes went to Wiz's shop for tea when I got sick of Aqua and Kazuma being snobby assholes.

With Vanir sometimes mind probing me and looking through my future and somewhat of my past with no permission, Vergil got up in arms and tried to kill Vanir for trying to probe me.

Since we were in a shop, inside a town where there are hundreds of Adventurers living their lives, I had to stop the both of them from doing anything that'll get me kicked out. Especially when we're in a shop where 80% of bottles are like grenades…

Long story short, Vanir managed to take possession of Vergil and stopped him from fighting him by looking through his past and commenting on every easy mistake Vergil made.

From acting arrogant, to striving for absolute power, to being easily manipulated and controlled (twice at this point), and to wanting to 'Be like Daddy', Vergil was almost defeated from exposing his past and being embarrassed of how childish he sounded when you took a second look at his life.

The only reason why I say almost defeated is because Vergil was able to take his Devil trigger form and regain control of his body as he took off Vanir's mask and stab it with the Yamato making the mask fade away.

...he came back the second day and teased Vergil even more…

"Moi knows about the first time thou's tried going to hell, but it seems that thou was unsuccessful the first time. Would thou like a roadmap of where to find Moi? Moi doth say, if thou's Daddy was able to do it, it should be a piece of cake for thou, especially with thou's impressive skill set." Vanir said smugly as Vergil looked unfazed at his remark until he resheathed the Yamato and went back into my arm.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Vergil backed out from a fight...Hell has officially frozen over…

Vanir readjusted his collar on his suit, "Now, shall we conduct our business?" Vanir soon sat down in a table near Kazuma.

"Kazuma are you really gonna do business with this thing? He's a devil, he's gonna take advantage of you and try to steal your soul!" Aqua butted in as she eyed Vanir with malicious intent.

This seemed to have caught Vanir's interest, "Oh ho? Take Advantage thou says? Moi is a trustworthy devil who keeps its word. Moi is not a sham of a religion that feeds on others money and generosity, all the while of speaking ill of a much more popular cult. My word, thou might be more delusional than Moi could ever dream of…" Vanir sounded a bit heated when he spoke about a certain cult that probably got on his nerves…

Aqua started to pout and become beat red as she soon grabbed her staff, supposedly out of thin air for some reason but we won't talk about that, and swing wildly at Vanir as she aimed for his head.

Vanir sighed, "Moi is tired of dodging, please put some actual effort onto your blind rage…" He said as Aqua soon got tired and stopped swinging.

Just like he said earlier, Vanir wanted to do some business with Kazuma.

Why you ask?

Well, it's because Kazuma is starting his debut of becoming an inventor. He wants to invent stuff from Japan and make a pretty penny out of it, just like the Kotatsu from earlier.

With no copyright laws in place, it's really fucking smart and cunning for a guy like Kazuma, but time consuming and frustrating to build for a guy like me for medium to big projects…

...well construction did teach me some things about minor structural integrity and using hand held tools...

After coming to a conclusion of taking 10% of total stocks, and getting a million eris per month Kazuma and Aqua were more than ecstatic to hear news like that.

It was at this time that Kazuma brought out something else to sell to Vanir.

In hindsight it was just balloons, simple to replicate and will definitely sell like hotcakes to children in this world…

...but after hearing the original purpose and design of a failed condom, part of me wanted to smack the fuck out of him while acknowledging him for doing a good-ish thing…

Vanir was impressed at the least with some of the "inventions" Kazuma gives him, and just like that he became a businessmen and went from being a snobbish fuck to being...a goddamn headache in the wierdest way possible with Aqua.

Before Vanir left sand tried to sell the Balloons and Kotatsu to the general public, he turned to me a left me with an interesting tip of advice, "Moi advices that thou saves up a lot of Eris for an upcoming event, it will take everything you and your companions have to resolve the problem. Your ability will tell you more later on."

He then left without another word, without giving any context for that 'upcoming event' he mentioned.

We only waited for Megumin to come back an hour later and witness whatever the fuck those two have become…

The way they speak and act is so stupid I literally can't be in a room with either of them since I'll choke them out just to shut them up.

Not even 5 minutes of talking to Kazuma made Megumin drop on her knees and while pleading Kazuma and Aqua to turn back into normal instead of what they were…

"Kazuma, I apologise for everything that happened yesterday, I'm sorry for the Excalibur incident, so please! Please turn back into the old Kazuma!" Megumin said while crying.

"The Old Kazuma? I don't get you, I'm past all that stuff that happened earlier. I've found my peace, would like some tea? Aqua~ Can we have some tea?" Kazuma said in the calmest and most enlightened tone.

"Oh god, you sound so disgusting! Please turn back!" Megumin continued to beg.

Aqua walked up to both of them and handed Kazuma some tea that she made willingly. WILLINGLY.

"Here you go Kazuma, I've made you some some tea just like you asked!" She said happily and unfazed, absolutely disgusting...

Me and Darkness had to drag her back away from Kazuma and Aqua before she could get infected. We had to explain to her what happened and why Kazuma and Aqua acted the way they acted.

"I was gone for one day! How could he make a complete 360 from Kazuma being Kazuma, to Kazuma being…. _that_ …" Megumin tried to make sense of the things that were happening, I felt bad for her bold decision of questioning things…

I placed my hand on Megumin's shoulder, "Megumin please, just don't question things anymore, the more you question the worse your life gets. Trust me…" I said trying to warn her from future headaches, "Besides, worse case scenario, we leave these two and and become a 3 party group…"

I mean with 2 major headaches out of the picture we could be a party that might be able to get something done.

Megumin sadly refused that worse, or best case in my opinion, scenario and tried to persuade Kazuma, "Come on Kazuma! Now that money isn't an option, grinding for your level ups shouldn't be much of a problem!" She said in a cheery tone.

"Level up? Adventuring? Why would I want to do that? I've got so much money, and a lot more to come later on. Doing things like that isn't my problem anymore, I'm just gonna stay here and live my days out peacefully, right Aqua?" Kazuma said in his same enlightened tone.

"Actually Kazuma, that's still troubling for me since I'm not back at Heaven, we still need to defeat the demon king." Aqua finally snapped out of her _**A S C E N D E D**_ mindset and came back to reality.

"That's not a problem at all! We'll just hire high rank adventures to do it for us! The amount of money we'll spend to do that will be like pennies to us!" Kazuma bloated as he supposedly had everything planned out.

"You're right Kazuma! We don't have to fight the demon king head on! We just need to deal the final blow!" Aqua said as she _**A S C E N D E D**_ once again.

"Killing the demon with money is cheap Kazuma!" Megumin tried to reason, but she has to realise that this is Kazuma we're dealing with.

I'm really tired of the arguing and Ascension talk, I decided to take a step out and get some air before I light another molotov and try to burn the mansion down.

It's not even the afternoon and I already feel tired with dealing with everything…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Sorry for the very late upload, but I did predict this before hand since KH3 came out.

Sadly the game isn't as long as I hoped it would be and I reached the near end within 18 hours, I played for a full 9 hours both Thursday and Friday.

Based off of others reactions, the ending and secret ending may break me as a human and destroy my creative process, replacing it with tears, tears, and more tears. If that happens, at least you got some info on why there might not be a chapter next Saturday.

Now you can skip this next part if you want, I just want to rant for a bit on the Super Bowl (not sports related though):

I'm so fucking pissed.

Why the fuck did they replace Sweet Victory for Sicko Mode?????

THERE WAS A PETITION FOR SWEET VICTORY TO BE PLAYED WITH 1.5 MILLION SIGNATURES, I KNOW BECAUSE I WAS ONE OF THOSE SIGNATURES.

Now, I never watch the Super Bowl, never have probably never will.

BUT THAT DOESN'T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO JEBAIT THE ENTIRE MEME COMMUNITY AND SHOW LITERALLY 10 SECONDS OF IT AND GO TO TRAVIS SCOTT.

This was a good opportunity not only for the creator of spongebob to be sent off on the highest note in television history, but to give the audience a hit of nostalgia with some immense hype to ride on as they continued to watch the Super Bowl.

I know, I know, celebrities usually have the spotlight of the halftime show and it's mainly just to promote something for them, but this was a genuinely good opportunity to play the song.

but no, we got jebaited so hard as the intro was only meant to introduce Sicko Mode…

...boy are the reviews gonna bite them hard in the ass…

ok, enough rant…

 **NAH I'M NOT DONE RANTING IM STILL SO FUCKINFVNEFIBVEOFINVWOIEF**

 **Questions**

 _Perry_

 _Is Tsukiyo going to learn new tricks with his demonic powers?_

He might, I haven't thought that far ahead.

 _Saru_

 _Will Tsukiyo meet the Elder? I believe she was only mentioned in the OVA._

She was mentioned in the OVA and she did meet with him at that time, hence why he gave her the 5 million Eris. She might not be appearing in future chapters, and will only be mentioned.

 _Urek_

 _Is there going to be any boss battle fights for the party?_

There will but I haven't thought up the scenario on how they'll find and fight the boss.

 _Ren_

 _Is there going to be more training for Tsukiyo with Vergil?_

There will but it might be off the chapters and implied later on.

 _Gen2324_

 _So any training Tsukiyo can get from Vanir?_

Probably not, Vanir isn't much of a combatant and uses possession and lasers to fight, not much Tsukiyo can learn unless he absorbs more power.


	46. She cant be this bad with a sword right?

A couple hours of shouting, antagonizing and headaches...seriously, is this gonna be majority of my life?

~ ~ ~ ~

 _It could be a lot worse, trust me there are even worse situations than having to deal with those 3…_

 **Yeah, I know...It's just been a while, so I have to relearn how those 4 function in a group…**

~ ~ ~ ~

I sighed to myself as I sat down near a dry spot of pavement near the door. Even though it is spring, there are still some small spots of snow that haven't been fully melted or puddles that haven't dried up yet...

I started to think to myself as I recalled what Vanir told me earlier, He said that I'll need to save up all my money that my ability will tell me later...I hope Kazuma or Aqua doesn't get into more debt...

It's already been more than 2 months and I'm finally gonna understand what kind of power I got from him…

Well it's either clairvoyance or creation magic since those are the only two types of abilities he has, or at least I think he has…

I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard the door open and saw Darkness' head peek out before she looked down and saw me sitting near the door.

"Hey…" I spoke out while giving a small wave

"Why are you sitting down here? Something wrong?" She asked as she stepped out and squatted next to me.

"Oh it's nothing, I just need to get myself some clean air and get out of the house. Those two are giving me a migraine...I forgot how irritating they can be…" I said as I sort of rubbed the back of my head

"Yeh, they can be a handful at times, but it's nothing we can't handle right?" Darkness optimistically said while giving a pleasant smile.

Oof, my heart…

I looked away to avoid making my heart stop for too long, "Uh p-probably…" I said trying not to be awkward but failing pretty badly

"Oh, I forgot to mention, we'll be heading to the hotsprings tomorrow so we'll have to wake up a bit earlier than usual to make it there." Darkness brought up.

Now this was a surprise to hear, "Hot springs huh? Haven't been to one ever since I as 16, this might be a good vacation for us…" I said nonchalantly as I remembered being the only one in my class who had actual money to spend there aside from the teachers.

A lot of people asked me for money and said that they'd pay me back after we got back...

...greedy bastards didn't even pay me back...

As I sat there still pissed from being robbed of my money that day, Darkness seemed to be in a small trance as she quietly said something under her breath as she smiled to herself.

"You say something?" I asked being sort of curious of what she mumbled.

She just shook her head and didn't tell me, "Oh it's nothing..."

She then stood back up and extended her hand to me before asking a question, "Hey, you wanna Spar?"

 **~Visible Confusion~** "You wanna spar?" I repeated her question

Darkness seemed to be high spirits today, might as well take her offer…

I grabbed her hand as she helped me up and accepted her request, "Sure why not."

After 20 minutes of getting our gear and walking out to a dry enough field near the mansion, we faced off against each other to test out who was a stronger, the Crusader who had the highest defense in the entire town, or the Demon Hybrid who came into this world who had a professional demon hunter living in his arm?

Well, because this was Darkness we were dealing with right now, you could easily imagine how all this played out…

I stood there, in the same spot for 20 minutes, 20. MINUTES. Not a single scratch was landed on me, nor did her Broadsword get even remotely close to me, and when it actually did it was only near my feet. WHEN HER SWORD HIT THE GROUND.

I wasn't sure if she was doing this on purpose since she does like me and doesn't want to hurt me, or if this is really her trying hard to hit me. Either way, she was beet red when she realised all her attacks were whiffing me by a mile and a half.

I want to ask myself what I was expecting out if this "fight", because I clearly am high as hell if I had a slight thought of seeing Darkness being able to hit me at all during this fight.

What happened to the Darkness who was able to out fight me and push me back when we fought about 2 months ago!? I know she was pissed and not thinking straight because of Vanir's possession, but at this point she should...oh who am I kidding...Darkness is never gonna improve her sword skill if it means she won't get hit as much…

As Darkness was swinging at me while still beet red, I managed to easily catch her Sword with the Devil Bringer and look at her with an unchanged gaze of boredom and disappointment…

"Oh, that stare~" Darkness squealed as she squirmed with pleasure

I sighed as I looked at the ground and caught a small glimpse of my expectations for a moment before it sank deeper in the grass…

I grabbed her hand and guided her away from the mansion to a nearby tree that looked strong and healthy.

I placed her right in front of the tree literally 2 feet away from it and handed her her sword.

"Hit it." I told her in a cold tone.

She looked at me confusedly, "Huh? Why do you-" she probably was going to ask what the point of this was or why I wanted her to do this, but before she could finish her sentence I cut her off and told her with the same cold tone, "Just hit it."

She stared at me with a gaze as she slightly panted from my gaze and voice, "O-ok~" she said happily

She gripped her sword with both hands tightly as she happily swung her sword at the tree, and I did see her sword it the tree...the problem?

THE FUCKING TREE ITSELF DIDN'T HAVE A MARK, IN FACT THE SLASH ITSELF LANDED ON THE GROUND 3 FEET TO HER RIGHT, HOW IS THAT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE!?

Darkness faced grew even brighter as she realised what I was trying to show her, "M-My word...looks like it's already this late out...uh, m-maybe we should just head back you know? Get some rest for tomorrow when we wake up earlier. C-come, Tsukiyo!" Darkness tried to drag me away back towards the Mansion to try and forget this whole incident.

I stayed glued to the same spot and grabbed her wrist tightly as I took her sword and placed her in front of the tree again.

I handed her sword again and gave her the same cold glare, "We're gonna stay here until you manage to hit the tree…" I said coldly

"Um, Tsukiyo couldn't we-"

"No..."

"But-"

" **No...** "

Darkness dejectedly stood in front of the tree, got in her battle stance and started to swing (but miss) at the tree.

For the next couple of hours or so, Darkness swung at the Tree that stood tall and strong, and as each minute passed a single slash was made on the ground. By the time it reached sunset, she literally made an mini island to herself from all the slashes she made!

It was already painful enough to watch her fail miserably, I can't even tell you how painful it is for Vergil to experience this as an expert on Swordplay.

Darkness seemed to be out of breath as she stopped swinging at the STILL UNSCATHED TREE THAT STILL HAS NO MARKS ON IT.

As Darkness was resting and recovering her stamina, I took her sword examined it.

It was a regular Broadsword and it looked just as sharp, but slightly taller than the Red Queen. I swung it around to see how it was in action; it had an ergonomic grip near the top and made it very comfortable for new adventurers to use, it was slightly heavier than the Red Queen but if you could control it's momentum it could be used as part of its attack power.

I stood right next to Darkness as I held the Sword in my left hand and made a hefty attempt to hit the tree, needless to say, I made a pretty deep gash with just one attempt.

I dug the sword into the ground and Helped Darkness up and put her in front if the tree again, but this time I stood a couple of feet right next to her, "Watch how I swing and try to replicate it, can you at least do that?" I really hope she can at least do this…

She seemed a bit annoyed when I told her this, "You know, you make it seem like I don't know what I'm doing and I take a bit of offense of that…"

"Oh gee Darkness, I wonder why…" I said monotonically as I gave her a blank stare

She pouted and looked away as she mumbled something to herself, refusing to cooperate with me any further.

I would've tried to say something to make Darkness cooperate and train further but for some reason, the migraine that I got earlier from Kazuma and Aqua came back, and it came back with a vengeance…

I held my head in pain as I continued to blame Kazuma for this pain…

...But that's when the Real pain came in since it was enough to knock me down to one knee…

Darkness instantly dropped down to her knees calling out my name asking if I was alright, but her voice soon was fading out until the world around me became mute...

 _After that, I started to hear voices...familiar voices at the least…_

 _"...Give up...it's already been a full month since…"_ _It sounded like...Kazuma…?_

 _Give up? Who was giving up...and why?_

 _There was another voice that came out, but...it sounded like my voice…._

 _"...If you guys won't help _ then I'll do this by myself!"_

 _My hearing started to recover itself while the voices started to die down, I was able to hear Darkness again, but before the voices faded out I was able to get a glimpse of a pissed off version of myself in a broken mirror but I was crying…_

"...kiyo! Tsukiyo! What's going on!?" Darkness said as her voice sounded like she was the verge of tears

I was able to grab Darkness' shoulder and have her help me up, "I..I think...I'm fine…" I said as had no clue onto what what just happened to me…

"Are you sure?" She asked out of concern, "What happened to you?"

"I don't know…" I said trying to recall what happened, "I just heard voices...Mine and Kazuma's…he wanted someone to give up on something...I was the only one who didn't want to though…"

"Let's head back and get you some rest...It's already sundown…" Darkness said as she tried to help me back

I let go of Darkness' shoulder and tried to walk on my own, "I think I'm good enough to walk, thanks for the offer though…" I said as I still held my head from some slight pain that lingered

It didn't take long for her to ignore what I say and still offer her shoulder for me to hang off of just in case, "I'm not gonna let an important comrade shrug off something that might affect them later, here, just take my shoulder...just in case…" she said sternly

I really didn't feel like arguing with her, so I did what she told me.

The pain slowly faded away when we headed back to the mansion, but I still don't know what happened back there…

~ ~ ~ ~

 _His clairvoyance….that's what you took from him…_

What?

 _The ability you stole from that Demon, Vanir, two months ago. It's seems like that's what you took from him and you were able to look into the future…_

But that doesn't make sense, if I took that from him, how could he tell what was going to happen to me today?

 _I'm not sure, but if we can learn how to control it, we can change the future how we see fit…_

Hey are you really…

 _I'm kidding, It's better not to mess around with the Multiverse…_

~ ~ ~ ~

Before we reached the mansion, I asked Darkness for a favor, to keep this a secret from the rest of the party. I'm pretty sure Kazuma or Aqua would try to use this for their own profit and Megumin just might assume that I'm just as crazy as Kazuma and freak out even more…

"...are you sure about this? I know that Aqua and Kazuma aren't the most reliable of comrades to have in a party, but you should at least-" I cut off Darkness as she was trying to reason with me

"I know, I know, we should at least try to, but with the way they are right now, there's no hope for them. This'll be a small secret between us ok?" I pleaded Darkness, she seemed to have a look of guilt before accepting my favor.

At the very least, Darkness is one of those very few people that I'd be able to put my full trust into if things got very bad, very fast…

Thankfully, no suspicion was raised from the moment we got back and into the sort of early morning where we'd have to wake up to make it to the hot springs.

"Alright! Is everyone ready?" Aqua shouted cheerfully as the rest of were probably tired or still asleep.

"Yeah! How long are you guys gonna sleep for!? We're heading to a hot spring! How are you guys not excited!?" Kazuma joined in with the same hyperactive energy as Aqua.

With me not liking being woken up by shouting and positive attitudes, I was nearly about to throw someone out the window if they continued to to shout. With no coffee in my system or 30 minute boot up for me to get used to being awake, I get pretty violent really easily when my sleep is disrupted…

I walked out of my room in a pretty pissy mood, and headed straight for the bathroom where I'd hopefully not run into Aqua or Kazuma and try not to toss them out the window.

Yeah...things didn't...go as expected when I went in the bathroom.

The only things that I remembered were heading into the bathroom, going up to the sink, washing my face, and almost destroying the mirror from hearing Aqua shout in the hallway.

I find it impressive that I sort of managed to do all this with my eyes half closed and blinded by rage, I also find it impressive that I managed to completely overlook Darkness changing when I walked in.

It took me a solid 5 minutes of standing in front of a mirror while slowly waking up, only to finally hear Darkness whimper my name.

"T-t-t-tsukiyo...w-while I do appreciate the b-boldness, could you please let me finish c-changing?" she said while stuttering from embarrassment.

I was confused at first when I heard this and tried to turn around, but was stopped when Darkness held both of her hands on my head to prevent me from looking back.

Darkness said in a low voice as she held her hands firm, "P-please don't look, I'm not decent yet…"

At this time, my brain was fully awake and started to comprehend what the fuck I just did. It didn't take long for me to yeet myself out of the window.

After having Aqua heal my broken wrist along with multiple cuts on my face and arms 10 minutes later, I was now wide awake while getting called a pervert by both Aqua and Megumin. As expected, Darkness is nowhere to be seen, but I don't blame her...

"Tsukiyo, please tell me that Kazuma's perviness isn't infectious, if so then me and Megumin might have to live in a hotel for a while…" Aqua said in a tone that sounded...not impressed to say the least

"For the fifth time," I tried to explain, "I'm not a pervert like Kazuma. He does shit like that on purposes about 70% percent of the time, this was an honest to god mistake. I was blinded by hatred and temptation to throw one of you guys out the window when you shouted, it's not my fault ok?"

Aqua got offended by this and stopped healing my arm, "Are you saying that my voice is annoying?! Is that how you treat a goddess?!" she shouted

"I don't know, is the sky blue and is the grass green? You tell me…" I retorted back

"Oh Ok then!" Aqua shouted, "Then I guess you don't need me to heal you then…!" She soon left me by myself with Megumin a good distance away from me

While Megumin still glared from afar, she seemed to have gotten closer and look at me dead in the eyes as if she was interrogating me.

It took awhile for her to stop staring intensely at me before she spoke her mind, "Hmmm, sorry for assuming that about you. I know that you're not the type of person to do Perverted stuff in purpose…" She said as she sat next to me.

"So you're saying I'm not Kazuma then, I guess that's a relief…" I said as I examined my arm, there was still some cuts left over but since they didn't bother me much, I'll just let them stay there.

"Yeah..." Megumin said absentmindedly as she laid back on the sofa we were on, "...But there are still some good points about him so he's not entirely a bad person…"

Oh? _Oh…_

"You like him don't ya?" I said while trying to tease her, but I guess she sort of took this seriously and replied seriously, "Maybe…" she said.

"Wait really? Huh, I never thought someone like you would go for someone like... _Kazuma_ …" I said as I tried to imagine why she would like him.

I'm not hating, but...Kazuma definitely isn't the best guy to hang around with…especially if a girl wants to go out with him...but hey if that's your choice…

I stood up and stretched my limbs, "Alright well, I'll support you and hope that those good points in Kazuma show more than the bad ones, so go for it!" I tried reassuring Megumin

She smiled a bit and thanked me for the words as I headed for the kitchen for breakfast, "Thanks Tsukiyo, I'll make sure to support you and Darkness for the future as well!"

I sighed to myself as she said those words, "T-thanks…" I managed to say, even with a shit ton of courage I don't even know if I could ask Darkness out…

As I ate my breakfast and packed my gear for the trip, me and Megumin made our way to the place where we'd meet up with Kazuma and Aqua. As we got there, it still looked like Darkness still wasn't there.

Was she _that_ affected from the bathroom thing? I'll make a mental note to apologise for her later when I get the chance.

Since we still had time left before we would get into the carriage and leave, I took this opportunity to sit down near a fountain and look at my skills to see if there was anything I could do before we left…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Red Queen:

Damage multiplier - x3.7 (Max. x5.0) Upgrade: 1 point per x0.1

Exceed Bonus - x2.0 **MAX**

Range - 10 inches (Max 1.5 Feet) Upgrade: 1 inch per point

Swing speed - 130% (Max 150%) Upgrade: 1% per 1 point

Knockback - x1.6 (Max x2.0) Increases as Red Queen receives upgrades

Demonic Cleanser: When held with the Devil Bringer, impact is increased by x1.5 and damage is increased by x1.5 in exchange for swing speed ( -25%)

Berial's Flames from the Fire Hell: When Red Queen is Exceeded beyond level 1, flames get more deadlier at the cost of 20% chance of inflicting self fire damage on level 2, and 40% when on level 3

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Devil Bringer

(Buster) Strength - 175% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5%

Lift Strength - 130 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 14 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet

Treasure Detection - Devil arm will glow brightly when near treasures or secret items within 10ft, can only be used when concentrating solely on the arm.

Shield of Credo - The Devil Bringer is now able to hold an enemy and use it as a shield, 40% chance of it working. Enemy can only be lifted if it's within the Lift Strength.

Bael's Cold Grip - When an enemy is being held on as a shield, it will not be able fight back for 5 minutes. Enemies attacking the shield has 25% chance of getting frost damage, and if the shielded enemy is slammed, it will shatter from 100% frost damage.

Unyielding strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Demon Drain: Drain any demonic or evil essence from an enemy and use it against them via a punch or Blue Rose Shot. Strength increases depending on how strong an enemy is, x1.0-x2.5 Fixed dmg.

Power of Sparda: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% Vitality

25% Strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Blue Rose

Normal Shot: Shoot 6 bullets in the form of 3 shots, (2 Bullets per shot) Will take 5 seconds to reload, costs 12 mana per reload.

Charged shot: Drain the demonic Essence from enemies and use it against them. Shoots all 6 bullets in 1 Shot, Takes 36 Mp per shot, 10 seconds to reload.

Pistol Whip: Use the grip of your Pistol to melee an enemy, will have fixed .5x Crit. chance if pulled off successfully. Uses .75x of Strength attribute.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Abilities

Sprint Speed - 147% (Max 150%) Upgraded 1% per level increase

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (current strength: 128)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Exceed - Heat up the Red Queen to gain extra fire damage, has levels 1-3

Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness.

Trigger heart - MP reduction has increased from 10 secs per 6 MP to 15 sec per 6 MP. Next upgrade is 20 secs per 6 MP at Lvl. 50.

Transference: Transfer 95% of your mana to summon Vergil, Son of Sparda. While he does retain all of his abilities and weapons, he is still connected to the host and can last just as long as Devil Trigger. All of the Buster Arms abilities, passive or not, are deactivated and will serve as a normal arm for the time being since the demonic consciousness are transferred as well. Devil Trigger is disabled when Transference is in use.

Transference can hold 20 hours*

Uses 6 MP every 15 sec. 24 MP per Min.

Current MP: 30,000/30,000

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Swordsman

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x1.8 (Max 2.0) Upgrade is x0.1 per point

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 80% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 50

MP Usage reduction with swords - 30% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 30% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 33.5% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Current Level : 47 _(Was 35)_

Strength : 128 _(Was 95)_ Status--Normal

Vitality : 3050/3050 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 30,000

Stamina : 108 _(Was 78)_

Defense : 128 _(Was 98)_

Agility : 110 _(Was 80)_

Luck : 101 _(Was 74)_

Faith : 5 _(Was -6)_

Dexterity : 99 _(Was 71)_

Will : 120 _(Was 90)_

Intelligence : 115 _(Was 88)_

Shooting : 60% / 100% _(Was 70%)_

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Strange, I know I have some of Vanir's clairvoyance but it's not showing up on my card…

Before I could figure out why the Clairvoyance wasn't on my card, I got distracted from something that smelled like it got burnt.

As I looked behind me, what I saw made me want to question a couple of things before dropping it and not wanting to question reality itself again and again...

Yup, I'm not gonna question the burnt Wiz that Kazuma was carrying over with us…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Alright I got some news for you guys.

I going to take a break from this story to not get burned out of writing. I've been writing this story almost nonstop for the past 7-8 months with weekly uploads and I've gotten to a point where I'm not enjoying writing this story as much as I did back in Nov.-Dec.

I honestly don't know how long my break from this story will be and how long it'll take for me to get back into writing the rest of the chapters up until the end of Vol. 7, but trust me, I will finish it.

In the meantime though, I got another story in the works that got me a bit motivated that's letting me be more open on what to write even if 90% of it is gonna be referenced from anime and creativity. Keep in mind that it won't be from the Konosuba Verse or the DMC verse. So keep your eyes peeled for Monday if you're interested in it…

Oh, I almost forgot, I would like to apologise to those who just discovered this Fic. and read up to this point only to see that I'm taking a break...I will be back, not sure when but I will.

 **Questions:**

 _Saru:_

 _Any Idea for an original arc?_

-Yeah, I got one idea and the best place I can probably put it at is at the end of Vol. 6, can't say what it is, but I think it's a good one. Gotta think of some more that I can put earlier...sorry for last chapter being boring, wasn't much to play around or rearrange with…

 _Farron:_

 _Did you know about the Konosuba movie?_

-Yeah, I know about it. Supposed to air somewhere around June I think…

 _Ina:_

 _So any side quest that Tsukiyo can do on his own, any chances of him leveling up. And new skills?_

-Tsukiyo could do some quests on his own and he will later, but it won't be nothing too crazy. He levels up in the background, so even if it isn't mentioned just know that his experience counts as exp, I mean he's already level 47… He will have new skills and gear after the Hot Spring arc is done, but you'll have to wait a while, sorry.

 _Gen2324:_

 _So will Tsukiyo go to the place where Aqua's worshipers live or is he going to stay behind due to how they may be even harsher towards him compared to the other Village._

-Storywise, Tsukiyo doesn't know that the Hot Springs are home to the Axis Cult, so he's going there blind.

 **Reviews**

DxHologram, Feb 4: Thanks for the review, yeah KH3 is a great game, it looks great and plays well for the most part, but the problems with the game lies with the story pacing/decisions and some of the combat. Kinda feel hollow after being the game, don't bum rush it like I did and enjoy the game.

Like I told Saru, sorry for last chapter being sort of boring. Wasn't much to play around with, or make interesting...Hopefully things can get better when I come back to this story...


	47. You're joking, right? (April Fools)

Sike! I got ya!

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If you scrolled this far to see if there was a secret then congrats, you played yourself.

there's actually a secret message in one of the paragraphs above if you want...

Edit; I might be back soon...


	48. One long ass trip

**This chapter isn't an April Fools joke, you can stop the skepticism.**

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

God fucking dammit…

"So...why is Wiz burnt to shit?" I asked Kazuma as he laid her on the bench on to us.

"Long story short; Wiz is just being Wiz, Vanir used a death ray on her, and now we have to take her with us. By the way, I'm gonna need some of your vitality to make sure she doesn't disappear, ok? Ok!" Kazuma said nonchalantly as he grabbed my demon arm and started draining it.

Ok, That's cool. Don't even bother with hearing my answer, just skip right to the succ...

I don't even need to look at him to understand that he's really fucking done with this world, and hey so am I to an extent…

But hold the fuck up, Vanir has a fucking death ray!?

Well shit, I guess I ran out of bullshit luck to get that…

As Kazuma drained my mana, energy, or whatever the fuck he was stealing, he got in real close and whispered, "So, how far along are you with Darkness?"

I sighed, and here comes the questionnaire…

"Oh boy, care to explain yourself?" I said in a fake confused tone

He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me in close, has he not heard of personal space?

"Come on, you know what I'm talking about." Kazuma asked, "Aqua's already told me what happened in the bathroom between the two of you, I just wanna know...did you see them? Were they nice?"

Let me fucking punch this man...I really want to deck the shit outta him…

I breathed in deeply, restrained all my might to not headbutt him right here, right now, and breathed out.

"I did not see anything, nor was what I did intentional, whatever Aqua told you was probably from her shit brain…" I said while gritting my teeth…

...but now it was my turn…

"But how about you Kazuma?" I smiled deviously

"How are things between you and Megumin? I heard from her that you and her took a bath together, should I be calling this worlds FBI to report a lolicon-" I was soon cut off by Kazuma who was trying to shut me up by covering my mouth with his other hand.

"That was an accident! The circumstances at that time were severely different! I'm not into that kinda stuff!" Kazuma said loudly.

"Not into what kind of stuff?" A voice behind us said angrily.

Both of us looked behind and saw Megumin giving s pretty good death glare as if she heard the entire conversation.

"The fact that Kazuma might be getting arrested for some-" I tried playing it cool and explain the situation Kazuma might be in, but he now used both his hands to shut me up.

"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Kazuma shouted.

Oh Megumin, what the fuck do you see in this dude?

Megumin still gave a death glare but it cooled down a bit, "By the way, Shouldn't Darkness be here? The Carrier's are about to leave soon…" Megumin said as she turned her head towards the direction of the Mansion.

"Oh! Well maybe Tsukiyo should go and-" Kazuma tried to be a cunning bastard and set me up, but Megumin interrupted him and his plan.

"No, I'll go. It might be safer if I go." Megumin said as she hurriedly headed towards the Mansion.

As soon as Megumin was now out of earshot, Kazuma leaned my head in once again, "So are you and Darkness going out then?" He asked.

"No." I said quick and toneless.

Kazuma wasn't convinced at all, "Oh my! What was that response...to say it so quickly, you must be hiding something aren't you?" He said with some evil intent

Why the fuck is he so persistent!

Before I was going to bitch slap Kazuma, Wiz woke back up.

"Hmm...Where...the store?" She mumbled as she tried to sit up.

"Oh, you're up." Kazuma said normally as turned towards her.

Oh look, he's back to normal...about time…

After filling Wiz in with what was going on and why she was here, a man with a slightly ragged cap, said that there was just about 5 minutes left until the carriages would leave…

While most of the carriages were already packed, with some still packing things in, we still couldn't leave yet because Megumin and Darkness weren't back yet, and to be honest I was starting to get a little nervous…

but thankfully, my worries were easily replaced with seething rage and killing intent the moment Aqua started talking.

"Hey Kazuma, let's take that carriage!" She said with glee as she pointed over to probably the most expensive looking there was where it actually had velvet seat cover and glass windows, "My goddess judgement says that that one will grant us great luck and a comfortable ride!"

I think she meant gold digger senses…

Kazuma, on the other hand was just about to go over to the carriage and pay for the tickets, but Aqua continued to talk…

"Come on, Hurry! I want the window seats! A goddess must see the land around her and determine if its good enough to build her settlement! Come on, they're gonna get taken!" She said loudly…

I am so fucking close to pistol whipping her…

Kazuma, having the patience of some kind of saint, ignored the baboon shrieking and talked to the guy who would be driving(?) the carriage.

He looked in the carriage for moment before doing a double take and walking up to the driver "Excuse me, Mr. Driver why is there a bird on one of the seats?" Kazuma asked.

While the driver would've explained why the bird was there, he was interrupting by some angry shouting...but it wasn't the baboons shouting surprisingly.

"A Bird!? You're lucky I'm in this fucking thing, I oughta come out there and smack you for calling me a 'Bird' ya little shit!" The voice came from inside the carriage, for a moment I easily could mistaken it for someone else or something else with the way it spoke.

I looked inside the carriage and saw a dark blue bird the size of a hawk inside a cage that looked somewhat small for him.

Now...I'm no expert, but I'm sort of sure that this bird or hawk is a demon.

Why? Well probably the fact that no bird I've seen is dark blue and black, has gold-ish eyes, and two separate bottom beaks under a fixed top beak.

Something tells me that isn't normal, even for this world...

(Just a quick thing, for those who played DMC 5, you know who this is. For those who don't, trust when I say this: The bird sort of sounds like Iago from Aladdin)

"The hell you looking at?" He said to me as both of his bottom beaks flapped as he spoke

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Strange...he looks...familiar…_

~ ~ ~ ~

"Old Man, what the hell is that thing!?" Kazuma exclaimed as he was sort of freaked out from the hawk.

" 'That Thing'!? Oh now you fucked up kid! Let me outta this thing, I'm gonna kick the crap outta this guy!" the hawk angrily said as he..or it...tried to bust out of the cage.

"Please don't anger the bird, so far he's been cooperative for the past couple of hours. The owner has already paid for the seat in full, I can't do much about it." The driver said as he probably didn't want to deal with this early in the morning.

In a small flash of light, Vergil came out of my arm and was about to go in the carriage.

"E-excuse me sir, you can't enter yet without pay-" The Driver tried to warn Vergil, but ine glare from him was he needed to silence him.

Vergil was now face to face with the hawk and examined him carefully.

"What?" The hawk asked, "Like what you see?" The hawk started to laugh to himself.

Vergil took a step back before unsheathing the Yamato.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! You can't just kill him, some dude owns that hawk!" I tried to reason with Vergil as he stepped closer to the Hawk.

"If it's a demon, then there's no reason to let him go. Step Aside." Vergil said coldly

"Oooh, the big bad man is gonna kill me! Ha, good luck with that snowflake!" The hawk mocked him.

"You stop talking too, you're not helping either!" I said trying to stop the hawk as well.

You know, it'd be great if Kazuma could help restrain either Vergil or the hawk, it's not like I like doing stuff on my own…

Vergil, surprisingly, sheathed the Yamato and fused back into my arm.

"What? Running away? What a fluke…" The hawk teased as he turned his back on me now.

One disaster avoided...here's to avoiding another one…

I stepped out of the carriage already exhasuted from Vergil trying to go gung-ho on some random demon hawk and what do I see?

Kazuma and Aqua playing playing Rock-Paper- and fucking scissors, outside the carriage…

I sat near the fountain away from them and held my head in pain.

This trip to the hot springs better be a damn good trip…

"Ah! Tsukiyo…" a voice from behind me called out

I turn my head to see who it was and saw Megumin, but she look...strangely bright…

"Oh Hey, did you find Darkness?" I asked tiredly

"Well…." Was all Megumin had to say before she sort of stepped aside and let someone walk ahead of her.

I widen my eyes so goddamn big you could call me me a meth head because what I saw, just couldn't be real…

There was a beautiful women right in front of me, wearing a dark violet dress with some frills on the edges and light purple accents. She wore some 1% tier jewelry on her wrists with a royal sigil necklace exposed just like 50% of her chest. She also wore a light purple sun hat that covered her face completely, but not the all familiar blonde hair that was braided and laid across her chest.

That was Darkness.

I made 5 different takes before actually being certain that it was her.

There was no armour, no chainmail, hell not even her broadsword!

It was just Darkness being an actual woman….

"So? What do you think?" Megumin gleefully said to me as she pushed me slightly closer.

Me and literally every other guy within a 50ft radius didn't know what to say.

Like you gotta understand, in a town meant for beginner adventurers, where everything is either normal, not normal, or just plain stupid, seeing the very definition of Elegance up close and personal...absolutely speechless.

I could tell that both of us were blushing madly, but just didn't say a word for a solid 5 minutes.

"W...what do you think?" Darkness said very quietly to the point where is was almost a whisper

I still couldn't say anything, all I could really do is stand around like an idiot.

"hehe...I know...it's a bit weird..even for me…" Darkness spoke again before turning around and getting more embarrassed.

"No...er..it's not that...it's just...well...you look...very…..uh...how should I say this.." I said before talking to myself trying to find the right words.

Darkness turned her head slightly looking back on me fumbling for the right words.

"...Ok, you look...amazing...stunning...jaw dropping...literally any of those….but yeah, you look great…" I finally said.

I wasn't to see Darkness face when she heard that, but I somehow I know she's really happy. But hey, anyone would if you told them that.

Never would I ever think I'd get to see Darkness acting like a normal person, it's so strange…

"Ok, that's enough. Let's just head out" Megumin said as she pulled both me and Darkness towards the carriage Aqua, Kazuma, and Wiz were at.

Kazuma paid for the tickets that would seat the 5 of us, along with Aqua sitting on the floor near the exit of the carriage.

Since he paid the tickets as regular people and not adventurers, he told us to pack our weapons in boxes or cases to have them in the storage cart. Of course, with not much of a choice, I had to put away the Red Queen in a box big enough to hold it, while I held onto my pistol just incase.

The next couple of hours were literally hell.

Now, when it comes to travelling, I want to do my best to dress up for the appropriate weather.

If it's gonna be hot as shit, I'm gonna be in some short clothing. Cold as Fuck? You bet I'm gonna put on layers upon layers upon layers.

So you tell me why it was a good idea to have leather armour in the middle of a goddamn heatwave while in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, WHILE IT'S 9000 DAMN DEGREE'S OUTSIDE AND HOLY SHIT I FEEL LIKE I'M BOILING!

It doesn't help that not only am I fucking dying of the heat inside the carriage, there's the goddamn hawk who won't shut the fuck up after getting into an argument with Aqua, and Megumin who won't shut up about how amazing the hawk is.

I'm really glad that Kazuma isn't saying anything, but the silence between me and Darkness is just beyond awkward.

There wasn't much small talk, and when there was it would just end abruptly or get cut off from Aqua being Aqua.

"So…" Darkness started off, "Do you know where the hot springs we're going to are at?"

"Well I'm just as blind as you are, but I guess we'll have to see when we get there." I responded, I really hope people try not to kill me or crucify me when we get there...

"We're going to the city of Water and Hot Springs, Alcanretia. It's supposed to be a town famous for their Hot Springs." Kazuma added.

"Alcanretia...I haven't been there ever since I was 14 years old. It was my first time travelling outside of town and I haven't traveled far since then…" Darkness said as she reminisced from her past.

"Well f you can speak highly about it then I guess it's a really good place then." I said.

Back in Japan, I've only been to the Hot Springs once, and it was for a school trip.

Although the trip there was sort of awkward for me since I was paired up in a group where the dudes just did what they want and sort of forgot I was there, but the actual springs itself was amazing.

I promised myself that I'd be back there to take my brother and mother to enjoy the stay...but then this happened so I guess I won't be able to keep my promise…

"Tsukiyo?" Darkness called out.

I snapped myself out of my trance and answered back, "Hmm? What?"

"You looked a bit sad there for a moment, everything good?" Kazuma asked me

"Oh, it's nothing. Just thinking about some things…" I said

I decided to look outside the window to avoid their gazes and question.

"Hmmm...I think I might have an idea of what you mean by those 'Things'." Kazuma said sympathetically.

"Do you really?" I doubtingly said.

"Yes I do. In Fact, I sometimes think about them too." Kazuma said as he looked out the door

You know, for once I feel like Kazuma is actually being genuine. I mean, he technically is in the same boat as me when it comes to being reincarnated so I guess these problems do affect him too…

"So Don't worry about those problems! I'll be more than happy to help you when the time comes!" Kazuma said brightly.

….ok, now my bullshit meter is going off

"You know, I don't think those problems can be solved even if you try to help me." I said to Kazuma.

Does he actually know what I'm talking about or is he off in his own tangent?

"Of course I know, it'd be weird to say it outloud right now, so It's better to discuss it when it's just the two of us. Trust me!" Kazuma said with full confidence.

I do not trust you.

No, Scratch that, I don't even think we're talking about the same things…

"Hey! Hands off the goods kid! I'm not for sale!" The hawk said as Megumin got closer and started to examine the hawk even more intensely.

"I can't help it!" Megumin exclaimed, "This is a 1/1,000,000 chance of touching a talking bird that won't try to kill me! I must take this chance to feel your feathers!"

"Yeah!? Well This birds about to throw some hands if you even try it kiddo!" The Hawk angrily said.

"Megumin leave him alone, the birds gonna try some weird stuff if you keep agitating it." Kazuma said.

"I don't need the help of some weak twerp to get her to stop. Trust me, if she even tries-" The was about to finished his sentence but Kazuma started to get in his face.

"What was that about me a weak twerp you stupid bird!?" Kazuma angrily shouted as he grabbed the cage angrily.

"Ooooh I'm so scared! Come on! Let me out of this cage! I'll fucking cook you, you string beaned prick!" The hawk angrily said as he started to flap his wings and get slightly covered in red electricity.

While a fight between Kazuma and some demon Hawk would've taken place, (never thought I'd be saying those words) the cart we were in took a sudden halt.

I stood up and started to talk to the driver, "Hey, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Um. I'm sorry customer but to seems like some creatures are rushing towards us. I'm sorry but, for your safety, we going to have to stop so the adventurers can...wait...are those...bats?" He confusedly as he tried to take a closer look.

Bats? In the middle of a blazing desert in the day?

I opened the window that was right next to me and poked my head out to also take a closer look.

As I focused my vision, I squinted my eyes towards the horizon where a dust pile was heading towards us. I saw faint wings flapping in the distance, and it looks like they were coming at us full speed.

I pulled my head back in as I headed towards the door.

"Wait, where're you going?" Kazuma asked.

I looked sort of confused for a moment, "To go fight whatever those are coming at us?" I said clearly for Kazuma to understand.

"Why do you have to go out there? There are other adventurers who can probably do the job better." He said arrogantly as he laid back into his seat.

"Really? You're gonna pull this shit right now?" I asked Kazuma

"Now what do you mean by that Tsukiyo? I'm just a paying customer wanting to go to the hot springs with his friends." Kazuma said innocently.

The hawk started to snicker a bit when he heard that, "Oh, so that's his reason…" It said sarcastically

"Oh, now what do you mean by that?" Kazuma questioned the bird.

"Oh it's nothing Sunshine, pay no attention to little old me." The Hawk innocently said.

"Alright, both of you shut up. Kazuma, I'd drag you out but I know that you're probably gonna be just as useless as Aqua, so you stay here in your safe space, got it buddy old pal?" I said as I tried to leave the cart.

"W-wait! As a crusader I can't let you fight by yourself. Let me come with you!" Darkness said as she tried to come with me.

"Can't let you do that, you gotta stay here too." I said rejecting her offer.

"But why? I can't let you go and fight by yourself!" Darkness said trying to reason with me.

"And I can't let you go out dressed like that," I said pointing to her outfit, "Trust me, I'd rather have you stay safe here than have you go out there with no gear."

"You don't have to worry about that! In fact having no gear would make things better!" Darkness said happily.

Oh yeah, forgot about that part of her….

"Either way, stay here." I said leaving it off at that.

I tried getting to the luggage cart behind us to find the box where my sword was at, but after searching for what seems like forever not only could I not find it, the bats that were heading towards us finally got close enough to the point where the whole swarm started to circle around the carts.

I pulled out my pistol and tried to take aim, but not only where they hard to shoot because they were too fast, but there were too many of them.

I couldn't even use my snatch ability to pull them close since they were too far.

I looked over to the other adventurers that were supposed to help us but it seems that they were also having trouble dealing with them, if not even more than me.

While my thought process was everywhere trying to find some kind of way to fight them off, a couple of them got too close without me knowing and shot some kind of fire beam at me.

My demon arm grabbed my shirt collar and yanked me out of the way and into some cover behind the luggage cart.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Keep a close eye around you! You nearly got burnt to a crisp!_

My bad, but thanks.

~ ~ ~ ~

I stood up from where Vergil yanked me into and started tried to run around the cart to fire some shots at the bats.

As I took a closer look at the bats, I noticed that they didn't look like normal bats, but demon like bats. Not only did the bats look leathery, they had a fiery face and 4 different wings attached to them, 2 for their arms like normal bats and 2 attached to their back like a gargoyle. (For those who played, DMC 5, they're the annoying as fuck PyroBats)

My shots were able to land on the bats and look like it hurt them, but when a couple of them go down, even more come from the swarm to back up the rest.

Since they were now close enough for me grab them, I used snatched against one of the bats that was close by and slammed it against the ground while trying to kick it towards the other bats.

While I did miss the bats in the air while kicking one of them, the bat that I kicked died, but it didn't change the fact that I was getting nowhere killing one bat in 5-7 minutes while still outnumbered.

Seeing that I had no choice in this situation, I used my Devil Trigger to summon the Yamato and have some kind of weapon to use.

Of course this did grab not only the attention of the other adventurers trying to fight off the bats, but the other bats that were either standing around or circling around the carts.

I dragged the other bats that were floating around and started to hack away at them after bringing them in closer.

It was a lot easier than using my bare hands to try and beat them down, but that soon ended when I started to get surrounded by at least 25 of them, and that wasn't even a quarter of the entire hoard that was still around us.

By this point, the bats were firing off fireballs and fire beams at my general direction with me trying to dodge as much as I could without getting burned.

The longer I dodged the fire, the more tired I started to get.

The Adventurers that were trying to help either got too hurt to continue fighting or just got tired out, so it this point it was only me.

"Tsukiyo!" someone called out from the cart.

I looked to where the regular cart was and saw Aqua rushing over to heal the other adventurers, Kazuma trying to protect Aqua (as crazy as that sounds, it actually happened), and Darkness, armed with a dagger only, running over to me.

"I thought I told you to stay in the carriage!" I shouted to her

I tried to make my way to her by dodging the incoming fireballs, but was constantly stopped and forced to move the opposite direction to not get burned.

Darkness still made her way towards me, and this took the demon bats' attention as start they started to take aim towards her.

I tried to use my revolver shoot at the ones firing the fireballs at her, but the other bats near them were taking the hit preventing me from stopping their rain of fire.

I ran as fast I could hoping to get there in time to move Darkness out of the way, but didn't pay attention to the 3 different bats that charged up their fire beams at me.

Not only was I hit by 3 different fire beams, my leather armour that I thought would protect me caught on fire, hurting me even more.

Seriously, who brings leather in the middle of a fucking desert...

I was down on the ground after being burned up and completely out of energy to get up.

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness shouted in fear.

I tried to get up but, the moment I even tried I was still getting pelted by fireballs without any breaks.

My Devil arm started to glow brightly before Vergil came out in his human form and started to launch blue swords towards the bats.

"Get up! Like hell you're gonna take a break right now!" Vergil said as he grabbed my collar and forced me up.

"I'll stall them for now, you get her out! She's nothing but a hindrance!" Vergil said as he started to slice them out of the air

As I sort of limped my way towards Darkness where she was defending herself, I continued to shoot the bats around her that were trying to fireball her.

Since most of my strength was gone, my shots were only hitting half the time.

With a combination of using my snatch ability to throw the bats to the side and my pistol to stop their fireballs, I was finally able to reach Darkness.

"Tsukiyo! You're okay!" Darkness said in a relief

"You need to get back into the carriage, you don't have any armour to defend against their fire!" I said trying to get Darkness into the carriage while shooting the bats.

"I can't leave you out here by your own! I'm not gonna let you fight on your own again!" Darkness said as she tried to swing the dagger at the bats making them back off a bit.

As I continued to push her towards the cart, a slightly bigger bat that was completely red, very veiny, and a lot bigger than the other bats started to rush towards us while looking like it was about to burst. (HellBats, the bain of my absolute fucking existence in DMC 5)

Without thinking, I pushed Darkness aside and took the much redder bat head on as it exploded right in front of me.

I was blown back towards the carriage along with Darkness behind me from shielding her from the blast.

It felt as if a grenade has exploded right in front of me when that bat exploded. I couldn't get up anymore and my leather armour had already got burned away leaving me almost shirtless.

I tried to get up from Darkness but was too weak to do so.

Was this seriously all I could do?

I trained and worked in a boot camp of sorts trying to get stronger, and I'm taken out by swarm of demon bats?

What was all that work for if I wasn't able to hold my own!

Fucking Pathetic!

By this point, Vergil was now in front of me not only taking the blows of fire being pelted at him but not being able to fight back.

"Tsukiyo! Get up, Please!" Darkness cried out.

I was struggling as much as I could to do so, but was too weak to even lift up my arms.

"Get...inside!" Vergil said gritting his teeth from taking all the fireballs.

Before I even knew it, the hawk that was inside the carriage in the cage, appeared right in front of us and emitted an intense giant electric shock around us making the bats either fall back or fall to the ground from getting caught in it.

"What the hell are you guys doing!? Even I could take these bastards out with my eyes closed!" The Hawk said as his wings started to crackle with red electricity before sending out 5 pillars of red lightning towards the bats.

"Come on you ugly pricks! Burn!" The hawk shouted before cackling and sending out more lightning towards the bats.

Meanwhile, Darkness dragged me into the carriage where Wiz helped tend to my wounds until Aqua could get here and fully heal me.

It took a while before Aqua was able get back into the carriage and heal me while Vergil and the hawk dealt with the demon bats.

The only sounds I heard outside the carriage were sounds of Lightning, void slashes from Vergil's Yamato, and the maniacal laughing from the hawk.

Before we even knew it, all the demon bats were gone and it was already sunset.

Aqua had managed to heal most of the adventurers that needed it and did basic first aid to those who didn't need it as bad as the others.

Kazuma was probably just as burned as I was but his shirt was still intact while his cape was completely burned.

Megumin felt depressed since not only was she the only one who didn't do anything, but it was the fact that she couldn't do anything because her explosion would've killed everyone since the bats were around everyone.

Darkness' dress was dirty, torn, and slightly burned so she had to return to her regular all back blouse and skirt for the rest of the trip. She seemed both happy and depressed knowing that she wouldn't be able to wear the dress anymore, but will probably have to buy another one when we get back.

Wiz seemed normal while encouraging everyone that they tried their best trying to fight off the demons, but everyone is just giving her a stink eye for doing nothing...

I was completely healed by Aqua from all the burns and explosion I suffered trying to protect Darkness and kill the bats while getting an extra shirt from the driver, Vergil is still in his human state laying down in the carriage resting up while healing with his own powers.

The hawk, who told us to call him Griffon, is perched on top of our carriage overlooking everyone and adjusting his feathers, "What? No 'thank you'? No, 'Thanks for saving my bacon Griffon'? Nothing?! Are all of you just gonna sit there and not thank me for saving you, like what the hell!" It said trying to get someone to say something.

Not a lot of people here are willing to admit that they had a hawk save them from dying, not to mention that it was a demon hawk at the very least, so most stayed silent while some are pretending to take a nap.

"Ugh, you guys are acting like a bunch of Pansies." Griffon said before landing onto the ground next to me.

"And you!" He said to me, "How the hell are you some kinda halfling? Did you pops bone some chick in this realm and create you?"

"What the hell kind of person has a demon arm but can't use it properly to take out a bunch of D tier demons?" Griffon continued.

"Bird, please shut up. I'm trying to get some kind of rest." Vergil grumbled from inside the carriage.

"Or what snowflake? You gonna cook me?" Griffon joked.

The driver of our carriage soon came up to us, "We're gonna be spending the night here due to most of our adventurers feeling exhausted after today's...event…" He said tiredly "I'd prefer you to get back into your cage for safety reasons…"

"Me get back in there?" Griffon asked the driver, he soon started to flap his wings and get to eye level with him, "You must be off your damn meds if you think I'm gonna get into that cramped piece of shit for the next day. Nuh uh, I'm good."

The driver at this point has had enough of Griffons shit and just let him do his thing while he walked away towards the bonfire the adventurers made.

"You just had to go and help the adventurers…" Kazuma mumbled, "I've basically paid for an expensive carriage ride to make everything as smooth as possible, but No! Your sense of Justice had to go out and nearly get yourself killed, like for the- what? Fifth? Sixth? Seventh time already?"

Getting really fed up with Kazuma's shit I was just about to smack him before backing off and trying to talk it out, "Yeah, I nearly get killed probably my seventh time. I admit it, what I did probably wasn't even necessary, but hey! You know what? I'd rather be out there at least trying to help rather than be an arrogant asshole who'll let money decide for him/her!" I said hinting at Aqua as well

"Hold on! What did I do this time!?" Aqua complained

"Shut it, party tricks!" Me and Kazuma said in unison.

Aqua looked like she was just about to bawl her eyes out before leaving towards the other adventurers and taking their booze.

"Um..guys, shouldn't you calm down a bit, the other adventurers are starting to stare…" Wiz tried to chime in, but we just ignored her.

"You know, this was supposed to be a really fun trip for us to enjoy. We would relax in the hot springs, get drunk till morning, and lead a fairly great life! But if what I'm doing isn't to your tastes then hey! Who am I to decide right! Right!?" Kazuma started to get just as angry as I was.

Megumin who was silent up until now brought something up as we were arguing, "Wasn't this trip entirely decided by you since you wanted to heal your 'broken neck' after you died…"

Kazuma seemed to be out of words as he just stood up and walked away from us.

I sighed to myself as I walked the opposite direction to him.

Not long after, Griffon flapped it's way over to me, "Some lover's quarrel that was, should've brought my popcorn..." It asked.

"Uh huh..." I said trying to ignore it

"Uh jeez, your starting to be just as moody as my "owner", I swear you guys would get along perfectly." It continued

"Look, if your just gonna be cracking jokes at me for the rest of the night, I'm gonna get to bed." I said, not being able to tolerate Griffons cracks at the moment.

"Ease up, dude. It's just some harmless jabs. Why's your demon undies gotta be in a bunch?" Griffon still continued.

I just shook my head and tried to ignore him.

"Alright, fine. I'll leave, it's better to have you and your wife talk it out." It sighed before flapping away.

I watched him flap away towards the adventurers while still being able to hear him from his voice volume, "Hey, Fuckfaces! Who wants to play a game of cards?"

I also notice Darkness walking up to me with a slight blush.

"Need Something?" I asked

"N-no, it's nothing…" She said while still walking up to me.

Both of us stood side by side while watching the desert in front of us. Needless to say, it was pretty boring looking at nothing.

Darkness was the first to speak up after being silent, "I...would like to apologise...for earlier…" She started off.

I stared at her a bit confused, "Apologise for what?"

"You know...going out to help when I wasn't properly equipped to do so, getting in your way, getting hurt because of me…" Darkness listed out while her tone started getting softer and softer

"Oh right...well, so far it's no big problem. Besides, part of me probably should've known that you wouldn't stand around and do nothing while watching me fight by myself." I said while somehow completely calmed down.

"One thing I want to ask though, Right before the big red bat literally Kamikaze'd us, you said that you didn't want me to fight by myself again. What was that about?" I asked her

Darkness stayed silent for a moment, "Truth be told, I still haven't forgave myself for everything that happened when the Devil that controlled me a couple months back. Of course, I was being selfish while only thinking about the hurt you put me through at that time and since he manipulated me through those negative emotions, I really hadn't considered what you were feeling and what problems you faced alone..."

She stayed silent for another moment before facing me with a serious gaze, "That's why I made a vow. A vow to never let you fight off your problems alone."

While it may be very rare and borderline non-existent, Darkness still had her moments where she could be completely reliable and an actual normal person.

I couldn't help but a crack a smile as I grabbed her shoulder and gave her a side hug.

"Thanks for that, but you don't have to dwell on the past too much. That's my job." I said, "Besides, as long as we're a team, You've got my back and I've got yours as well."

Darkness leaned her head on my shoulder as the both of us took in the moment…

...but it wasn't as much as a moment with Griffon shouting, 'Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!' in the distance.

The rest of the night was spent sitting around the campfire (and singing the campfire song. Our C-a-m-p F-i-r-e S-o-n-g song….I'm not sorry) with Aqua doing her party tricks, Griffon annoying everyone, and most adventurers digging into their dinner.

Me and Kazuma were still bitter towards each other, and haven't really talked as much that night, but we were able to sit by each other and eat normally.

By the time it was already time to sleep, most of the adventurers had already knocked out with a couple of us still awake.

Vergil and Griffon decided to take the night shift and agreed for the rest of us to get some sleep.

...so far, everything was going great.

The night was silent, no one or thing had attacked yet, and we had an experienced Demon Hunter and Demon Hawk watching over us.

But by logic that probably defies both the laws of physics and my sleep schedule, something always has to keep me up if it isn't the sound of Aqua's late night drinking….

I had another vision when I was asleep;

 _I was in immense pain, and had no idea what had happened while being in some unrecognizable place..._

 _I was on the ground with a pool of blood spouting out of my right arm where my Devil Bringer would've been._

 _Kosuke, who strangely enough had longish and rough hair and clothes, was pinned to a wilted tree by the Rebellion with half its blade broken, lifeless and limp._

 _With everything that was going on, the only thing I could focus on was the sight of Vergil with a cracked face leaving through some kind of dark purple gate/portal…._

 _...and it was him that had my torn off Devil Bringer…_

 _"You two!" A voice called out from beyond my vision._

 _With my vision blurring from blood loss and shock, the only thing I could find noticeable was his cane and tattoos all over his body._

 _"This is much worse than I thought, but we need you two to survive longer…" He said with a slight toneless voice._

 _He tried to pick me up as the blood of my ripped off arm poured onto his black leather clothing._

 _"Come, we must hurry…out the gate!" He said while struggling to carry only my body not, but not Kosukes…_

 _"Wait…" I said trying to muster some strength…"He's still back there...Wait!"_

I shot up from where I was lying

"Wait!" I said desperately

I took a good look around me.

I was still in the middle of the desert with the Adventurers and my party sleeping.

I checked my body at least 3 times making sure everything was where it was especially my Devil arm.

After verifying that everything is where they should be, I breathed out deeply with my heart beat growing faster and started to tremble…

I know that I've had multiple near death experiences before, at least six or seven at this point. I know that It'll probably increase with my luck. I'm still gonna be afraid of death no matter what usually happens, but what I saw through those visions terrified me.

Not only would Vergil betray me at some point, but he's also gonna betray Kosuke….

But what about the other 4?

It looked like it was just the four of us in that vision, but what happened to Kazuma and the others…

"Hey, get back to sleep. I'm not gonna drag your sleep deprived body around when you get to the Hot Springs…" Vergil said behind me

I completely panicked as I got my revolver, pointed it at him and nearly shot him point blank.

Luckily, because he was experienced in both hand to hand combat and swordplay, he was able to knock my revolver away from my hands and restrain me from grabbing it with the Yamato unsheathed and pointed at my neck.

"Mind asking me what that was about?" He said with a menacing tone

"Sorry about that...it just...you really startled me." I said while trying to keep calm

"I don't think a startle is enough of a scare to pull gun on someone." Vergil said unconvinced.

He noticed how I was trembling and got close to me.

"What's got you scared?" He asked.

Part of me didn't want to answer since I don't know how he would've reacted.

If I told him the truth would he try to kill me to silence me?

No, it wasn't possible, both of us are connected. If I died, so did he, but…

If that was the case, how was he still in his human form after cutting off my arm...was it possible for him to do that…?

And if he did that and it did work, wouldn't he have to leave no survivors like he did with Kosuke...

He eyed me for another minute or two before he resheathed the Yamato and got off me as he headed back to the carriages.

"If you won't tell me, then that's fine. If you won't go back to sleep, then your on guard duty with me and the pigeon." He said coldly.

He tossed a lengthy box over to me before warping back on top of the carriage.

"Pigeon!? I swear one of these days, I'm gonna shove that sword so far up your-!" Griffon said as he tried to make a comeback, but was shushed by Vergil.

I really didn't feel like going back go sleep and having the possibility of Vergil either killing me and Everyone in their sleep or have that vision continue, so I took the Red Queen out of the box and guarded the opposite direction of where Vergil was sitting at.

It seems like I made a bit of noise since I accidentally woke up Darkness.

"Tsukiyo...what...are you doing?" she said as she got up from her spot.

"Oh...I couldn't sleep well. Just gonna help Vergil and Griffon on guard duty, you can go back to sleep." I said quiet enough for her to understand and not wake up the others.

She seemed to have woke herself up quickly as she stood up quickly, "Let me help you…" She said as she went to the luggage cart and brought out a random broadsword.

'No, it's alright you don't have to do that. Go back to sleep.' is something I want to say, but knowing her she probably wouldn't listen and do what she wants anyway.

Besides, having her as company helps a lot compared to standing alone.

As the both of us were standing around watching the desert do desert things in the night, Darkness asked me a couple of questions asking about me and what I was like before I became an adventurer.

"Oh me?" I said

"Well, not a lot of my past is as impressive you might think it'd be. For starters, before becoming an adventurer, you'd probably see me running one of those store in a town of some kind probably wasting away and getting a pretty decent pay.

Yeah, I've worked some odd jobs here and there at a young age. Collecting trash, working as a waiter for a restaurant, even doing some light work in construction, but nothing really out of ordinary as a normal person.

Heh, well it probably was out of the ordinary for someone as young as me…" I explained.

"Well it sounds to me that you were pretty hard working at a young age." Darkness added in

"Oh yeah, I definitely was. But all the money I earned though I gave to my mother so we could pay rent and have food on the table." I said remembering the good times of spending time with me, my brother, and my mom.

"Why is that? Wouldn't you father have to do things like that?" Darkness asked.

"Well, that was the thing; My father had left my mother when I was 9 and by that time, it was only her having to work night and to provide for me and my brother." I said having to recall something that I didn't like to bring up much.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Darkness apologised as she felt like she trip on a landmine.

"Oh, it's alright, you don't have to apologize. My dad was a great person in heart, told me to be nice and humble to those deserving and to not pull punches to assholes who get in your face. While I do miss him, I just wish we could have talked more…" I said.

Part of me wonders what he's doing right now in Japan and how much I really want to tell him and mom about how crazy and stupid this world is.

"Well you could always try and find him, and when you do you could talk to him as much as you can." Darkness said with a light smile.

I chuckled to myself, "Sadly it's not gonna be as easy as you think."

"Don't worry, with the Dustiness family detectives, we could find you father even if he left towards another continent." Darkness said with full confidence.

It was a bittersweet feeling, but I just brushed off aside as I smiled with Darkness, "That still won't work. But hey, Maybe I'll tell you everything one day…" I whispered to myself.

"What was that?" Darkness asked

"Oh it was nothing…" I said innocently.

"Hmmm...one thing I want to know though, how'd you get your Demon Arm and know about Vergil?" She asked

I can't really tell her how I asked for it when I died and got reincarnated so I guess I'll have to tell her as much as I know based off the google search of "DMC4 Nero's buster origins"

"Well...that's something I still don't understand myself, to be honest…." I said, "But one day when I was walking back from school, I was attacked by Demon Lizard. This was when I was still 13 years old I think so I didn't have my revolver or sword at that time.

So I tried to run as fast as I could back towards the village where I lived but the lizard caught up to me and sunk his teeth into my arm. Luck enough for me, my scream of pain was heard and the villagers was able kill it before it tore off my arm.

They said that I was bedridden for a couple of days after healing my arm, and when my arm fully healed...well...it became this…" I said motioning my arm.

"That's really strange, I never knew it was possible for demons to have an ability like that." Darkness said as she though intensely at my 'Story.'

"Well be it as it may, after the entire village witnessed my supposed 'transformation', they started to shun me saying that I was a "tainted child" acting as if I was demon full and through." I said in a convincing depressed tone.

"Hmmm…" Darkness looked a bit uneasy when she heard this.

"You don't have to have sympathy for me, people didn't understand what they saw so they decided to act like I was one." I said, "I don't blame them, probably would've done the same if it was someone else…"

"Hey, Tsukiyo…" Darkness asked.

I looked towards her and from my perspective it looked like it she was leaning her face close to mine. My entire mind froze and went blank when I notice her do that.

I wasn't sure if it was just me doing this as well, but the both of seem to be leaning in close as if we were coming in for a kiss.

I wasn't sure how close we were but I could've sworn that there was some contact, as light as may have been, I felt like I felt something….

..but...

"Hey Love birds, eyes up!" Griffon interrupted

Both of of us had finally regained our own conscious and had taken a couple of steps back away from each other.

"If you guys are done sucking face, how about you try and help us!" Griffon said as it summoned a single thunder pillar and sent it toward a mob of zombies.

This startled everyone awake.

"Wake up sleeping beauties, we got a hoard coming in, and unless you like being zombie chow I'd get your gear in check!" it said.

A couple of adventurers were dumbfounded as they saw the area around them, "Zombies? We aren't even close enough to civilisation for them to appear, how'd they find us!?" One of the adventurers said as he unsheathed his long sword.

I glare instantly headed towards Aqua where she trying to play of off cool by whistling to herself.

But, in the first time in history, the gears inside her head started to turn.

"Hah!? Attacking the Goddess and her followers as she and her companions rest!? Despicable! Allow me to free you from your undead shackles and set free into your eternal home!" Aqua shouted as she brought out her staff and started to chant her spell.

" Turn Undead! " Aqua shouted as she finished her chant.

Before most of us knew it a large white rune appeared beneath us and started to glow very brightly.

All the undead were getting burned alive and their souls were glowing brightly as they flew up and slowly disappeared.

All of the Adventurers were shouting cheers of joy as they were "saved" by Aqua.

"AHHHH!" Griffon screamed in pain as he started to burn up and somehow turn into a glass looking ball as he fell on the ground,

Oh right…

Forgot that Griffon was a demon too along with Vergil and Wiz-

oh fuck…

I looked around frantically to find Wiz and Vergil.

Vergil was smart enough to anticipate Aqua doing something like this and warped himself...well..somewhere?

As of right now, I couldn't really find him anywhere, so he might warped himself really far….

Wiz...wasn't so lucky…

Not only was she weak from getting the death ray from Vanir, now she had to deal with Aqua's Turn Undead at almost full force.

She was knocked out on the ground where she was, was very transparent, and had the white of her eyes showing no signs of life…

It's a good thing no one was looking at her since they were all cheering on their "savior" who get rid of ll the zombies...that were attracted to her in the first place.

After the Magic circle vanished from the ground, Vergil warped back to the carriages and back into my arm, while Kazuma had to drain the demonic essence from me again to make sure Wiz didn't get killed...again…

I wasn't sure if I was more glad that Vergil was back into my arm where he could only control my arm or the fact that I won't be able to hide what I saw on the vision from him for long.

I just hope that what I saw won't happen for another couple of years at best.

Kosuke looked a lot older in my vision so I guess I have some time left to prepare before D-day actually hits…

The rest of the night was spent with me and Darkness on guard duty as we kept watch with Griffon as he finally recovered from being a glass ball back into his normal form.

Yeah, he did try to shock Aqua multiple times throughout the night, but gave up as soon as Aqua started to chant her spell again amd had her head smacked with Kazuma's racist sounding sword.

By the time it was sunrise, me and Darkness slept inside the carriage throughout the rest of the trip with Griffon flying above the carriage overlooking everything.

Megumin woke us up in the afternoon after we finally reach the city and while I was still half asleep, what I saw not only looked like a hallucination, but looked too good to be true.

The City of Alcanretia.

A city known for Water and its almost world famous Hot Springs.

And as Aqua finally told me as we got here, the home base of her followers the Axis Cult.

Goddammit…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Hey guys, it's been a good minute since I last updated this story ever since the april fools chapter.

I laughed when I saw the "angry but not really" messages, and for those who used alt-f4 to cheat...you're a fucking cheater reeeeeee.

Now, while this story was on hold, I was busy doing bootleg shit on my other Story based off the DDLC-verse. The only difference between my story and the regular ones is that mine isn't fucked where it's all either very scarring or depressing.

Now if you're reading this message Today (Thursday, May 16th 2019), then at this point I will be on a family vacation for the week in North Carolina.

Where though? Well to be honest, I have no idea either.

For the rest of May though, I probably won't be uploading because not only has colleged finished for me but I want some rest in general. Besides My birthday is in May, like hell I'm gonna do jack shit on my b-day.

Aside from that, this is an update of sorts on both stories I'm doing.

For this one, I might go to bi-weekly (Every 2 weeks) updates, why? Because I'm going to be working from the entirety of Summer, to Fall, and end at near Christmas where I would take a rest and do another year of college. The bi-weekly update may change to monthly, or standard weekly depending on my job and how much sleep I can either sacrifice or gain.

For my non-fucked DDLC story, I know for a fact that I'm gonna do monthly updates since not only does it take much more creative intent to create it, there aren't as much people waiting (including ghost readers) for it to update like this one.

Now if I may, I'm gonna go and eat my breakfast and hope for people to not blow my fucking phone up with notifications.

I'm looking at you Noobmaster69, Stop it!

 **Edit:** I also just wanted to say that, not only have I written up a roadmap for this series, but I have a rough idea to have some kind of "offgrid" like arc's in between each canon volume.

Just so nothing is spoiled too much, I will be doing a Monster Hunter World arc after this one with a nostalgic character from another game. Only real OG's, and I mean **real** OG's will remember who he is.

I know for a fact people get bored if they know the story already with not much to improve on, so I'll be trying to plan around that and make things interesting.

Along with Monster Hunter, I already planned for DMC 5 like enemies and characters to appear in regular chapters and specified ones.


	49. Alcanretia Sucks

Alcanretia.

The home of Aqua's supposed "Followers"...

Now, I expect 3 things to happen on this trip:

I Either A) consistently try to get scammed to buy something completely useless, B) find a bunch of lowlives that probably do jack shit instead of actually do their jobs, or C) get repeatedly 'turn undeaded' because they don't like anything related to the dead/demons.

Knowing Aqua, she'll either have total control over them or no control whatsoever…

As I stood there with all my hopes completely withered away, the driver of the carriage pulled me aside.

"I'm sorry to bother you, especially when you just woke up and arrived at the city, but… it'd be within your best interest to hide that arm of yours…" He said in a very cautious tone.

"You know, I'd like to, but everyone and their dog knows who I am at this point especially when you consider what me and my party accomplished. Trust me, I'd love to live a life where's there isn't constant attention aimed towards me, but that life had already went away the moment I became an adventurer. Thanks for the warning, but it doesn't do much good to me anymore." I said as I sort of ignored his warning.

I really want to live a normal-ish life….

I stepped aside from him and started to unload some of our luggage from the luggage cart.

As soon as I did that and started handing the team their stuff, a man with leather sleeveless coat, corset, and pants started to walk up to us with a metal cane as he looked at an old book reading aloud a poem with a toneless voice.

The only very strange detail about this guy is his tattoos all around his chest and arms.

"Ah Sun-flower! Weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun:

Seeking after that sweet golden clime, Where the travellers journey is done." He said within rhythm as he closed his book.

So...here he is….

"V!" Griffon said as he flew down towards him.

The man in all leather with the jesus sandals, who I guess his name is...V, lifted his left arm out as Griffon landed on his forearm.

"V, you bastard!" Griffon angrily said as he faced him, "Do you have any idea how shitty that cage was!? I mean, look at me! Do I look like some kind of pigeon to you? Huh!?"

"Oh, I apologize. I just wanted to make sure that nothing happened to a dear friend of mine while they were out alone." He said in his same toneless voice.

"Dear friend, huh? What Bullshit…" Griffon complained as he started to re-adjust his feathers.

At this point, V walked over to me and the rest of the guys, but he seemed to have a slight interest in me especially.

"I would like to thank you adventurers for not only tolerating my companion, Griffon, but also keeping him away from danger." He said

"Keep away from danger? Ha!" Griffon said before laughing, "Yeah right! I had to save them from some hellbats that ambushed us yesterday. I was the Danger!" Griffon said all high and mighty like.

"Is...that so?" V said in an slightly intrigued tone.

"Besides," He continued, "This kid right here with the demon arm couldn't do shit! Seriously, what a joke!"

I planted the now found Red Queen onto the ground as I revved it a couple times making it spit some flames.

"You know...I wonder if you taste like chicken…" I said while trying to hold myself back from slapping the bird right in his mutated beak.

"Oh...You wanna go!? Come on! I'll tear that shitty grin right off your-" Griffon was about to finish the threat until V held his cane up to his beak to shut him up.

"I apologize for his behavior, he gets...hot headed every once in a while…" V said as he started to take his leave.

"I'll let you lot enjoy your vacation, Farewell…" V said as he left.

V…

~ ~ ~ ~

 _That man….he...no, it's impossible…_

~ ~ ~ ~

A crowd had started to form around the entrance.

Part of me wondered if they gathered because of Griffon's loud shouts, but as soon as they started to look and point in my direction I didn't need to guess anymore.

"Hey Tsukiyo, you're bringing up a crowd, can you do something about that?" Kazuma said as he started to take his stuff towards the Inn were staying in for the night.

Oh boy, Kazuma is still bitter...cool…

Welp...it ain't my problem!

"Hey Aqua, go deal with th- Aqua? Aqua!" I said trying to find her as I looked around.

About 20 ft away from me towards the Inn, I see Aqua doing her stupid party tricks for some kids and elderly people as they watched her in awe.

Okay...let's hope that they don't crucify me before I can speak.

I started to walk up to the small crowd that was looking at me, and by the time I was close enough to even speak out to them, they scattered away from me and into the city without a word.

I should've just stayed back in the mansion. I can already tell that bad shit's gonna happen.

As I finally made my way towards the Inn we would be staying at for the next day or two, I couldn't help but feel daggers getting glared at me from all kinds of directions.

Even the moment I walked into the Inn, everyone stopped what they were doing and just gave me a glare or some kind of look as if I just spat in their face.

The only exception to this look was the receptionist talking to Kazuma as she handed him the key to our room.

As soon as he got the key and headed towards the room with Wiz still unconscious on his back, the receptionist joined in on the fun and started to look at me with the rest of the room.

I followed closely behind Kazuma to not meet any of the glares and to get out of the lobby as fast as possible.

When we got to our room, we took in the sight as we saw what first class looked like:

High Class King sized beds for one person, a window that leads to a damn good view of the city and a small fountain, high class brick and stone for the walls, and quality bread and fruit on the table for guests to have.

The good shit.

"Hey Tsukiyo, I think it might be better to hide your demon arm. A lot of people were glaring at you the moment we got here." Megumin mentioned as she sank onto one of the beds next to Wiz.

"I wish I could, but not only did I not bring a sling with me but a crowd had already formed around the entrance while catching a glimpse of me and my arm." I said, "They'll be able to connect the dots soon enough and know who we are..."

And if the people here are similar to Aqua, there's a possibility that they'll just suck up to celebrities spending time here to get better tips/pay.

"Tsukiyo's right Megumin," Aqua said as she rudely interrupted me and Megumins conversation, "The people here will have to not only recognize my party accomplishments over the months, but the fact that their own Goddess is here in the flesh!" Aqua declared proudly.

As Aqua started to go off into her own happy place with booze, sunshine, and bullshit, Megumin leaned over to me with a concerned face, "Is she still like this?"

"Sadly, yeah." I replied back.

I mean, It wasn't entirely a lie that Aqua was a Goddess in this fantasy world and that these people might actually be her followers, but because Aqua is a straight up bitch 95% of the time, I'm just gonna deny all that and bully her.

Remember Folks: If someone is a Grade-A Jackass, being an asshole/bully is completely justified!

(Don't quote me on that. -Konran)

"Alright, well I'm gonna try and do some sight seeing. If I don't make it back by dinner, assume that I'm either dead or crucified by some church." I said as I started to walk out the door.

"Oh! Wait for me!" Darkness said from one of the rooms.

She soon came out with some actual clothes that weren't all black and edgy.

A light yellow long sleeve shirt and regular dark tan pants while her hair was down, something you never see everyday.

"Ready." Darkness said happily as she left the room first.

I soon headed out the of the Inn as me and Darkness wandered throughout the city.

While it might've been a good experience for her to explore a place she hasn't been to much, I wouldn't say that it was same for me…

...Why you ask? Well…

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Duck_

~ ~ ~ ~

I ducked as a couple of fiery arrows flew above my head and into the wall next to me.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Step back_

~ ~ ~ ~

I stepped back from where I was and saw a big potted plant filled with broken glass and bricks fall onto the ground and make a big crash

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Left_

~ ~ ~ ~

I sidestepped to my left as a battle axe flew ahead and hit a wooden store ahead of me.

30 minutes.

30 fucking minutes this has been happening.

Now I wouldn't be listening to Vergil from the issue I have with him at the moment, but after getting hit with 2-3 beer bottles in the back of the head after he warned me, I feel like taking some of his advice…

Of course with this happening, people who weren't ballsy enough to do any of those things to me and see me dodge it just spat in my general direction.

I hated this.

Like seriously hated it.

This cycle would've stayed like this for another 15 minutes before Darkness stopped in front of an open shop with a Dwarf and an Elf each running a stall right next to each other.

"Oh my, what's a beauty like you doing with a sore thumb like him?" The Elf said as he started to check out Darkness.

Darkness ignored this guy's advances and started to fangirl for a moment, "Tsukiyo, Look! It's an elf!" she said all happily, "It's my first time seeing an elf!"

"...and a handsome one at that." The elf added in before giving her a wink.

I'm guessing that Darkness forgot the time when the Elder and Meryl came over to let me know they weren't dead…

But it's strange, compared to Zofia, Meryl and the Elder, this guy's attitude feels...off...

"Oh shut your damn trap pretty boy, Can't you see the man has character! A real display of Manliness!" The Dwarf argued trying to defend me.

So does this Dwarf. While I haven't talked to the other dwarves back in the village, they were much more muscular and gruff than this guy. He looks fat compared to them...

"Manliness? Oh please, all I see is another meat head with a strange arm. Completely unsightly." The Elf criticized once again

"You should get some of that glitter out of your eyes, maybe you'll see quality from trash. Now that I think about it, you don't own a mirror, don't you?" The Dwarf said as he started to laugh by himself.

"Forget him, Sir, can I interest you in some homemade Dwarven meat buns. Ma's secret recipe." The Dwarf said as he pulled out 2 meat buns and napkins.

"One for you, and one for your very special lady friend. Hell, I'll even throw in a discount for couples as well." The Dwarf said.

"Ugh, of course food. Instead of offering a steaming pile of grease for a lady, how about you buy something of quality I know she'll like." The elf said before pulling out a silver woven style bracelet with a small orange/gold gem in the center.

"If they're here sightseeing, then you'd think they'd have enough jewelry back home to sell to real designers!" The Dwarf started to argue again, "The best way to a person's heart is to through their stomachs, wouldn't you say my man?"

"Food will come and go and turn into shit, big whoop. Jewelry exactly like this are far and few. Besides, a woman's best friend is diamonds, what do you think Citrine is known for? Wouldn't you agree M'Lady?" The elf argued back.

At this point, I'd rather leave and not look back but I'm dying of starvation and the bracelet would look nice on Darkness so..

I sighed to myself as I pulled out my Eris pouch, "How much for both?"

"5,000 for the buns." The Dwarf said.

"10,000 for the bracelet." The Elf said.

The fuck are these inflated ass prices!?

I sucked up as much pride as I could for this buy and handed them the money.

The Dwarf gave us the buns, which had now gone cold from their arguing and the elf was still trying to make advances towards Darkness.

"Pleasure doing Business." Both of them said before leaving to head inside their own houses.

We ate the buns in less than 3 minutes with it's pretty odd taste and I was given the bracelet.

"Hey Tsukiyo," Darkness said "You didn't have to buy the bracelet, especially at the prices they were selling it for…"

"Hand me you wrist." I said ignoring her concern from the bracelet price.

She hesitated for a second before handing me her right wrist. I grabbed her hand gently as I placed the bracelet on top of her hand and tied it firmly.

"I know it's not as fancy or over the top as most of the stuff you probably have, but it looks nice on you so why not." I said with a slight blush.

Darkness pulled her hand back slowly and started to caress the bracelet gently, "No, it's perfect." She said with a bright smile.

Both of our stomachs started to growl lightly breaking the mood between us.

"You know, I'mma ask those two for directions to a cafe, I don't feel like dying of starvation." I said before heading up to the house and lightly knocking on the door of the Dwarf.

While I did knock gently, the door that I thought was closed wasn't closed, and creaked slowly as the door revealed the inside of the house.

What I saw only made sense of some things, but also disappointed me in a way.

Inside the house, was just one room. Right next to the doorway I was in was the door I saw and thought that lead to another house. Inside the room itself though was just a table, and two old chairs with the fake elf and dwarf counting the eris I gave them.

The elf had his fake ears on the table in front of him while the Dwarf was holding onto a clip on beard he had.

Both of them froze in place as they saw me with a disappointed gaze.

"You….weren't supposed to see this…." The fake elf said in a normal voice

"Now I know this looks bad, but there's a pretty good explanation for this!" The fake dwarf said as he stood up and tried to explain himself.

I was walking back while giving them an uninterested gaze, before I closed the door I whispered, "Fucking Phonies…" before fully closing the door and leaving the combined house.

"Were you able to get directions?" Darkness asked as I walked away from the house.

I switched gear from being disappointed to be somewhat clueless, "Oh, they said to keep walking around. There was a lot of cafes around, so it's impossible to miss them."I said in a somewhat convincing tone.

I just started walking ahead of Darkness taking the lead hoping that there was a cafe around and to my surprise there was one.

The cafe we were at was sort of an indoor/outdoor hybrid where there were tables outside the cafe if you wanted to eat with great weather or sit inside with the shade to take a break from the heat.

Since we didn't mind the heat as much, a surprise coming from me since I nearly died from being inside the carriage, we decided to take a table outside near the edge of the cafe.

Of course, I did get most of the attention because of my arm, but aside from weird stares and peeks there weren't any people coming over swinging a battleaxe to my head or crucifying me on some kind of cross and offering my head as some kind of sacrifice.

"Hi, Welcome to the Axis Bar and Grill, I'll be right with you." The waiter said as she gave us two menu's with a smile as she left heading back inside the cafe.

Seeing as she wasn't as disturbed about my arm as others, this was a definite sight for some sore continuous near death eyes.

"These prices are….a bit much…" Darkness said as she looked through the menu.

I looked through the menu and saw what she was talking about, nothing in the menu was under 1000 eris, which completely killed the purpose of it being a Cafe in the first place.

(At this point, I'm just gonna convert Eris/Yen to US dollars just to make comparing things very easy. -Konran)

Breakfast Croissant with a side of eggs and some OJ? 1500 Eris. ($13 US)

A tomato soup with some bread sticks on the side? 2000 Eris ($18 US)

A fucking regular breakfast with eggs, toast, OJ and half a grapefruit, 3000 Eris ($28 US)

Are these ingredients made from jewels!? Do they chemically engineer this to the literal point of Perfection!? Can they even do that in this time period!?

I honestly don't care about starving to death at this point, but holy shit, these prices are literal robbery...

I basically forced myself to buy the cheapest lunch there was which was 1200 eris ($11 US) which was a chopped salad, while Darkness got something called Pain Au Chocolat which was 2 small sticks of chocolate wrapped in bread (I had this in a Panera when my sister used to work there, it was so fucking Dank. Try it.) with Earl Grey Tea, which was 3200 Eris combined ($30 US)

When the waiter came back with our food, all my respect and positive vibes I had about her went down the shitter, like straight down no swirl around the bowl.

Remember that salad I ordered? Yeah, they literally just pulled some grass from a fucking pot and tossed it on a bowl with dressing on it, they didn't even brush off the dirt when they pulled it out, it's straight up weed from a plant with dirt and dressing.

Darkness on the other hand got a palm sized croissant filled with chocolate, and a teacup of tea, so yeah money well spent.

The waiter looked at me with a confused face, "I'm sorry sir, but this is what you ordered right?" She said in an innocent tone.

I looked at her with the most dumbfounded face only to see her face looking confused but have her eyes look like she enjoying every moment of me looking like a fucking tool.

"This is unacceptable." Darkness sternly said as she stood up a serious face.

"Miss, please step away from this gentlemen. He could be very dangerous, maybe even an Eris worshipper, or both." The waiter said as she tried to get Darkness away from me.

"Oh? And what if I said I was already part of the Eris Sect.?" Darkness said questioning the lady.

"Is that so…" the waiter said in an unamused tone, "Here, let's fix that shall we?"

The Waiter then proceeded to take the top off of the teapot and pour it on Darkness.

Having her defense very very high, I don't think this hurted Darkness at all since she stood there shocked from the waiter, but it really did piss me off.

Out of pure anger and seething fucking rage, I pulled out the Blue Rose and shot the teapot point blank making hot tea and sharp glass shards flying everywhere.

I held the Blue Rose in my other hand as my demon arm used its bigger spirit arm to grab the waiters shirt and pulled her about 2-3 feet off the ground.

At that time, I unawarely pulled my Devil trigger making her not only tremble in absolute fear, but definitely freak out most of the guest there.

"At this point, I would've killed you for what you did," I said with my voice having a slight demonic tone to it, "But I'm gonna give you 5 seconds to apologise before I break every bone in your body."

The color in the Waiters face had gone beyond pale, and it didn't help that Vergil's spirit stand stood behind me with the Yamato drawn, making her almost faint.

The waiter stuttered her words very badly trying to say something, but the very menacing aura I was pressuring on her made it impossible for her think straight.

"Tsukiyo, That's enough. I think you made your point." Darkness said calmly as she grabbed my shoulder gently.

I turned off my devil trigger and let go of the woman who just fell to the ground almost motionless and in utter shock.

Me and Darkness turned around and left the Cafe with all the stares and glares burning a hole in the back of my head.

We were able to walk towards a small harbor where sailors were unloading and loading boats at the same time.

I took a couple of large breathers as I tried to regain my cool from what just happened.

After getting back to normal, well sort of, I turn my attention to Darkness whose hair and shirt were still covered on tea.

"Are you okay? Does the Tea burn?" I asked out of concern.

Darkness looked at me with a normal gaze, "Yeah, I'm ok. Tea didn't burn as much I wanted to…" She said with a slightly disappointed tone

"Come on, let's go back to the hotel, you need a change of clothes." I said as I grabbed Darkness' hand and headed towards the Inn.

Darkness, despite being covered in tea that was boiled and poured on, had a small smile on.

"You know, that was a bit of an overreaction for tea being poured on me." Darkness teased, "...But part of me feels happy that you reacted that way. Made me feel very important to you." She said as she started to cuddle close to my right arm.

"Yeah, maybe that could've gone better, but that waiter had it coming. I'm not gonna let anyone do something completely fucking horrible to you." I said with a slight blush, can't believe I'm actually saying something like this…

"Hey Tsukiyo…" Darkness asked, this time blushing a it more than usual, "When it's just the two of us….call me Lalatina...ok?" she hesitated for a bit before telling me.

"Sure thing Dark-...Lalatina…" I said as I corrected myself.

She leaned her head on my shoulder the rest of the way to the Inn where we found Wiz now awake and not unconscious anymore.

"Welcome back you two, how was your- Oh my! What happened!?" Wiz asked as she placed a Towel over Darkness' head.

"Well, some things happened here and there, Darkness got covered in tea for being a Eris Follower and let's just say they really don't like Demons here…" I said as I paraphrased my general experience.

"So, how was your 2nd near death exper-...I mean short nap?" I asked Wiz.

Wiz looked at me weirdly before dismissing it, "My nap was ok, but it might've been better if-" Wiz got cut off by the sound of our door getting knocked on followed by loud-ish voice.

"Ma'am have you decided that you want to join the Axis Cult!? We're gifting a once in a lifetime deal of soap, holy water, and coupons to the Cafe if you join now! A deal like this doesn't come around everyday!" the voice shouted as it was followed by more loud knocking.

"...if that person hadn't been knocking on the door every 5 minutes asking me to join the Axis Cult..." she said with a exhausted sigh.

"Hey," I said, "Since my demon sword can cut some portals, what are the chances that one of it's random locations takes us back to Axel?" I asked Wiz.

Wiz seemed confused by my question, but thought seriously, "Hmmm….42,745,920/1 maybe?" Wiz said

"Alright, I guess that isn't so bad…" I said to myself.

"Oh wait, since it's a demon sword, it might be 130,845,900/1 if you take the underworld into account too…" Wiz added in.

"Well shit, there goes my plan." I said, Can't leave secretly with those chances…

I heard the door open along with a couple of tired sighs. Both Kazuma and Megumin looked tired, but Megumin looked lifeless.

"Oh Wiz, you're up." Kazuma said tiredly.

Megumin didn't pay attention to what was happening as she walked past me and Darkness just to flop onto the bed and not move for a couple of minutes.

"Tired?" I asked Megumin

"Mmmm…." she just groaned while not moving.

"Yeah, pretty relatable." I said pretending as if she said something that made sense.

"So, how was your guys' walk around the town?" Kazuma asked.

"People tried killing me for the first 30 minutes, we sort of got scammed but not really, and I was served trash while Darkness got covered in hot Tea." I said recalling everything that happened.

"Wait, we were scammed?" Darkness said all confused.

"The Dwarf and Elf were fakes…." I said

Darkness looked disappointed after hearing that, "Oh…"

"Yeah, sounds about right." Kazuma said unfazed from what I told him.

Megumin, on the other hand, shot right up as sat up on the bed, "Covered in hot tea!? Darkness, are you okay!?" She said completely shocked

"Oh it's alright, the tea wasn't even that hot to begin with." Darkness said reassuring Megumin.

"By the way, where's Aqua?" Darkness also asked.

"She went to the baths early. Said something about wanting the bath all to herself, I didn't listen to her much to be honest." Kazuma said.

"Oh! speaking of the baths, I went to it earlier. The water is very soothing and it melted all my fatigue away." Wiz sid happily.

"Earlier?" Kazuma said to himself

Wiz continued, "Yeah, but I went into the mixed bathing so the hot springs were much bigger, can't say for sure about the women's area."

"Mixed Bathing!?" Kazuma said to himself as his voice cracked a little bit.

I looked at him for a moment and saw him trying to so some intricate college level Statistics in his head as his face grew a bit bright while muttering to himself.

Ah, now we probably have the real reason for him wanting to come to the Hot Springs…

"Wow, I never knew you were this brave Wiz." Megumin said sort of amazed at Wiz

"It was nothing, no one was there at the time so I had the place all to myself. It felt like I rented out the entire springs!" Wiz said as she joked around.

Kazuma looked completely defeated when he heard Wiz say those words.

"Ugh, I'm gonna go to the baths now, I feel exhausted…." Kazuma said as he slouched over and went to his room and grabbed his stuff, "Hey Tsukiyo, wanna join me?" he asked.

"Are you sure?" I asked him. I don't know if he's still bitter or not, but if he's inviting me then I guess he got over it?

"Yeah, I don't really care anymore…" He said tiredly…

Ok, well I guess his disappointment is immeasurable and his day might be ruined….

I left to my room and got my stuff that I needed for the bath as me and Kazuma headed for the Baths.

Before we left, I was able to hear a conversation between the girls back in the room.

"Did Tsukiyo buy that bracelet for you?" Megumin asked.

"Yeah, it was overpriced but it didn't seem to stop him though." Darkness replied back.

"It's suits you very well, I like the color." Wiz added in happily.

I couldn't near the rest of the conversation, but that conversation was enough to make me happy.

"What're you smiling so brightly for?" Kazuma asked while still being salty about his 'missed opportunity'

"Oh, it's nothing." I said leaving him with those words as we continued to the baths.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Just a quick heads up, I got bored playing on my cpu and wrote this on the 29th, so maybe I lied again about not doing shit during the rest of the month of May.

Another thing is that I've reached the halfway point in the LN since this volume is very short, so you should probably expect the end of Vol. 5 in maybe next couple of chapters.

Don't worry, I won't pull any bullshit plot armour or at least I don't think my way of ending things count as plot armour…

I'm not sure if I made this Vol. short because of the 9.5k chapter last chapter or not, but hey the Monster Hunter edition will be coming very soon, and I feel like you guys might enjoy those chapters.

Edit: How is the pacing on this chapter, feeling a bit skeptical...

Edit 2: Holy Hell that Death Stranding trailer….

\-- -- -- Questions -- -- --

 **DxHologram:**

 _That future vision that Tsukiyo saw, are you going to start a similar event like that of DMC 5?_

-Yes, but to an extent. I'm gonna have to skew a lot of things and stretch others, but he will be corrupted.

 _….and Kosuke is going through the same thing that Dante did, his Rebellion broken. I don't think he has the Sparda though?_

-I mean...Vergil was able to spawn the Force Edge with his powers and fought Bael (or Dagon) with it back in the Off-Grid chapters. This will be important later.

 **Gen2324:**

 _Griffon's appearance was a surprised, does that mean V would make an appearance soon?_

-No

 **Heron (Guest)**

 _Seeing Griffon was great and pretty hilarious. His owner is V right? Or is it one of another character that actually possess a DMC character powers like Tsukiyo and Kosuke?_

-Yes.

 **Morals (Guest)**

 _Do you think Tsukiyo would be able to hide himself from the city, long enough to meet Hans with his party?_

-Yes.

\-- -- -- General Responses -- -- --

 **DxHologram:**

DMC5 is probably my next favorite game of 2019, aside from KH3. Been playing BP ever since launch and I still haven't beaten it, can't get past floor 60 for all characters and I'm really trash with Dante, can't go SwordTrickGunTrickSword like Donguri, but I'm sort of close.

The trailers were amazing and the music choices were great, still having a little bit of trouble getting used it Subhuman. But man, that last trailer….absolutely perfect.

As said above, there will be some similar events from DMC 5. I don't know how I'm gonna add Devil Breakers, if I even add it in, but ya boi will lose his good arm.

 **Gen2324:**

I've still got some DMC4 stuff left in my mind that I wanna add along with some DMC5 stuff, but most of it will have to wait.

I really want to take my time with the Development between Darkness and Tsukiyo since, I really want to hold off on the ship sailing until much later in the series. That and the process of them falling in love is really fun thing to write in.

Yeah, he still has some training he needs to do and he will get some training and experience soon.

 **DoorToLight47 (I'm not sure if that's a KH reference or not.)**

Thanks for reading all the way up to this point. Don't know how long it took, but I guess it took a good minute to read all 48 chapters.

I wanna ask if my pacing is okay, because I'm already at the Volume's halfway point.

Thanks for the compliment on the Tsukiyo's abilities this far. To be honest, it's a bit hard trying to scale down his strength and level out the playing field since DMC doesn't have much info on how much each slice/bullet does in terms of damage.

Yeah, he still has a long way to go, a very very long way since the "final boss" of this series is where I'm hoping I can get his skill level going from swordsman in training to almost DMC canon fighting. He will be training more and getting more experience, but he just has to keep on learning.

I haven't read much other Konosuba fanfics, so I don't know how they do romance. But they aren't in a relationship just yet, still holding off…

 **Journey To The End (Cool name btw)**

Thanks for the compliment, and thanks for the DMC lore in a nutshell I'm gonna have to screen cap. that to show to other people if they ask about it.

As I mentioned to DoorToLight47, I haven't read much of the other Konosuba fanfics so I don't know how common a DarknessxOc or Kazuma is, but I do know that the Megumin ship is sort of common since she is the meme of the show and beloved character.

Tsukiyo still has a long way to go, but his fighting experience will go up and probably be on par as Kosuke's by the end if this series.

 **Ina (Guest)**

Tsukiyo will get better, he just needs some experience, trust me.

For the second part of your review, I can't respond cause it'll be spoiled…

 **Oran (Guest)**

Yeah, I know it's weird. I just needed some kind of excuse to put tension between them, Why? I don't know…

Besides, it wasn't his party's fault this time, so he probably had no obligation to help out with a fight.

 **Tenshu (Guest)**

Yes

"So I think Tsukiyo should try his best to stay hidden and cover his Devil Bringer."

"...Stay Hidden..."

Hahahaha….you're funny...

 **Avalon (Guest)**

Don't worry, you'll probably get another one that gets interrupted, that's how these kind of cliche stuff works right?

Aside from that, didn't they show Nero and Kyrie kiss at Trish and Lady's ending?

Edit: Ok, just rewatched, they didn't. Fucking Capcom, I wonder how many people they pissed off by not showing that scene.

Oh well, doesn't matter we have Tumblr for tha-

...Oooo, too soon…

 **Jardezky Mioza**

Thanks for reading all 48 chapters, it must've been a long ass time or not.

By the way, become one of us! We have pizza!

 **Lorenzo (Fancy Guest name my guy)**

I was there for the whole ride and man the end was satisfying, now I hope the next game gives more info about Sparda. They never really said if he died or not, not sure how long demons can live…

I don't even watch Star Wars and I found that meme funny, I think at one point in the Mission Genesis where you find the Sparda and fight the Nobodies, he says something close to "It's my turn to play with the Devil Sword Sparda."

 **Terra (Guest, didn't like his character in KH:BBS)**

Thanks for the review.

Don't worry, both of them will admit it at some point. I'm just trying to build it up and find a right time to let the ship sail.

 **Guest that didn't put his name down, but reviewed this morning (June 1st, 2019)**

Thanks for the review and opinions of my story. I'm glad you could enjoy my story even if you don't like the Kono Subarashii ani-verse.

If you did read up to this point, I do recommend watching watching the Anime itself if you haven't, but if you did, well then I guess I did a good job in letting your opinion of the series be a bit better.

 **RokenDarkly**

I forgot to put this in my last review, but:

 **REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE *angry typing noises**


	50. Hot Spring Shenanigans

The Hot Springs.

A place you usually go to once or twice every year if you were a normal person with a normal wage.

If you were some kind of rich guy with no responsibilities or things tying you down, you could probably spend time there about 2-3 times a month…

But if you're not normal adventurers like us who somehow get through life with a horrible party setup and just about 40 million eris with some deadbeat teammates, you could probably spend just about a whole week here and not make a dent in your savings….

...but hey, it's a good thing that the people here are horrible so I'm just gonna take my time and soak in the great hot springs for the next 20-30 minutes since I'm never gonna come back here...like ever…

Me and Kazuma had finally reached the Hot Springs area, and just like any normal Hot Springs, there are 3 different areas there, Men, Women, and Mixed.

I, making the obvious choice, headed towards the mens bathing area.

But Kazuma…

"Hey, where're you going?" He asked…

I looked at him with a confused face, "Men's bath area?" I replied.

"I thought you were gonna join me in the mixed bathing?" Kazuma said.

"Ok, ok, Hold on. Since when did I say I was gonna join mixed bathing?" I told him, I knew Kazuma was going to mixed bathing since I'm not gonna stop him from getting the weird looks, but like hell I'm gonna be the one joining him.

"We made a mutual agreement back in the carriage! Did we not share that moment of mutual agreement where I'd say I'd help you with you problem!" Kazuma said as he started to argue.

"No we did not, I was thinking about my family and wanting go bring them to the Hot Springs one day, you were thinking about the mixed baths and almost visible boobs." I argued back correcting Kazuma.

Kazuma stayed silent for a moment, "Ok, maybe I was thinking about those things, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us reincarnated brethren to share a moment in the mixed bathing!" Kazuma declared proudly.

"Ok, that sounded a bit gay." I commented.

"Not in that way! I don't mean share a moment in that way!" Kazuma retorted while blushing…

"Doesn't matter what you say, You're not gonna convince me to join you in mixed bathing." I told him before leaving to the mens baths.

"What if I could convince Darkness to get into the mixed bathing?" Kazuma said seriously

I stopped where I was walking and glared at him, "You wouldn't."

"Hmmmm, I don't know. I mean she does like sticking close to you these days, so It wouldn't surprise me if she did go in there if it meant that you were also there." Kazuma said smugly, "Could you imagine it? You and Darkness sitting close to each other in a bathhouse?"

"No, I can't. Nice try Kazuma." I said sternly before entering the

men's section.

While I was unconvinced at Kazuma's theory, because it's always good to be Cynical and Skeptical, part of me really did hope that Darkness wouldn't fall into any of Kazuma's traps or temptations.

No. Actually, forget that.

I'll trust Darkness fully, even I know that she won't give in to Kazuma's words, she's smarter than that, I know that.

At least I hope…

As I got unchanged and about to spend a good amount of time by myself, I headed towards the sliding door to open it only to find out that it wont open.

The hell?

I tried to open it a couple more times only to have it stay shut.

I took a step back and looked around the door to see if some asshat is pranking me jamming the door with a stick, but there was no stick nor any snickering I could hear.

What I did find was a small poster near one of the compartments where we put our clothes…

 **Due to an unexpected pipe bursting, the Men's bath is under repair.**

 **Repairs should be completed by tomorrow night.**

 **We're sorry for the inconvenience.**

Hey, what the fuck is this?

Are you actually fucking with me right now?!

Is life basically forcing me to join in the Mixed bath with Kazuma?!

Ok, calm down, let's use logic…

I can either A) Skip the bath and be a nasty nibba, or B) be ridiculed by most of the party for being almost like Kazuma…

Goddammit, both are fucking bad!

Those 3 know me enough to know that I wouldn't do this kind of thing by choice so I should be good. If not, then I could always pretend that I got Pill Cosby'd by Kazu-

No, that won't work. They won't even understand the reference...

Ugh...welp, time to rely on luck and the amount of Aqua's still active brain cells.

I put on my clothes again and grabbed my towel as I headed into the Mixed bath.

Kazuma was just about to enter the baths until he saw me, and had the big smug grin.

"Not a fucking word…" I said as I got undressed and had to mentally prepare myself for anything I might see whether be be old man sack or the funbags of life.

Whatever I see within the next 30 minutes, good or bad, will have a good chance of being burned entirely inside my brain...

I took a couple of breathers before opening the door and it wasn't even 2 fucking minutes before Kazuma put his arm around my neck and present the Mixed bath.

"Tsukiyo," Kazuma said, "Look at it, the glory of uncensored skinship between adults. Look at it!"

I tried ignoring Kazuma as much as I could when he did his little speech.

I moved his arm away from my shoulder, "I'm not like you, I have some standards you know…"

Kazuma just chuckled to himself as he heard me, "Oh Tsukiyo, the moment you entered here is the same moment you cast aside your standards. Face it! You're just like now…" He said all villain-like.

I walked past him and sat in the Hot Springs, "Ok, ok. I get it, stop talking before people here start to stare." I said in an annoyed tone.

"Pssh, like you're one to talk Mr. Demon Arm." Kazuma said normally as he sat right next to me.

I started to sink my body in the water even deeper as I laid back and just stare up at the sky.

This was nice, and the Hot Springs were really good.

I could already feel my body getting lighter and lighter with each minute that passes by.

My mind started to feel more and more at ease too while I was in the Hot Springs too.

There weren't any of my old classmates being loud as fuck while trying to decide who could stay under the water the longest or guys pressed up against the wall trying to hear the girls in the other bath (just yet), it was peaceful with no one trying to kill me or shame me for being a demon.

"So, returning back to our conversation right before we left Axel…" Kazuma started off with.

Oh for fucks sake, right when I'm just trying to relax.

"...how far are you with Darkness?" He asked.

"I'm not obligated under any contract to explain my relationship with Darkness, your honor. You have no right to question or Judgement while I relax from bitching about reality." I said to Kazuma as I try to dodge his question.

"Overruled. We are currently in the bath house and you're bound to the contract of the Bro code. I'm enabling the 'Whatever happens in the bath house, stays in the bath house' into effect, and you have no choice but to answer to the judge." Kazuma said in a fake professional tone.

The Bro code, huh? Alright, if that's how you wanna take things…

"Alright, then. Tell me: Do you or do you not have feelings for Crimson Demon loli weeb Megumin?" I started to question Kazuma.

Kazuma stayed silent for a while as he contemplated his answer.

While I did think that I was able to catch him off guard, I was proven wrong as he thought seriously about it and gave me his answer.

"I don't know, maybe I do." He finally answered.

I sat up from where I was laying down and looked at him, "Really?" I said in genuine honesty, "What about her do you like? I honestly thought that people like Darkness would've been your type, I still remember the way you looked at her when we first met her."

"Yeah, I did too, but the more time I started to spend with her the more I started to think that 'Hey, I wouldn't mind being in a relationship with this person.' I mean, it just sorta happened when we went to do some Daily explosions in the Dullahans Castle." Kazuma said as he started to recall his memories from the Fall.

"But hey, A lot of things can happen before we actually go out. I might be able to have my own harem." Kazuma said as he started to fantasize.

Alright well, seeing as Kazuma was able to be an honorable person and say things like that I guess it's time for me to be the honorable one.

"I guess...for me and Darkness…" I started out, but when I was about to explain myself, Kazuma looked uninterested and looked like he was spacing out until I caught a glimpse of what he was looking at ahead of us.

What he was staring blankly at was a woman with short red hair across from us covering herself up with a towel while she was right next to a well built guy with short brown hair who was sitting the Hot Springs.

The women looked a bit uncomfortable as she sat there, and chances are that it was Kazuma's fault for her feeling that way.

"Hey, didn't your mom tell you it's rude to stare?" I said while looking away from the woman.

"Oh hush, don't be such a child. It is mixed bathing, I'm just acting normal in this kind of situation." He said as he continued to stare at the women.

"And here I was convinced at your feelings for Megumin…" I mumbled to myself.

I spoke out to the couple ahead of us, "I'm sorry for my friend here, he's a natural born perv who never acts normal." I said apologizing to them.

The woman ahead of us was kind enough to dismiss this, "Oh it's alright, I mean it is mixed bathing so this is sort of expected." The woman said slightly awkwardly.

"Thank you for clarifying this area, so don't mind me." Kazuma said as he didn't break his gaze on the woman.

"...but you on the other hand," The woman spoke out to me, "You're...not normal, are you…"

"Well you're right about that, I'm not normal. Especially with this arm…" I said while still looking away.

At this time, the man in the bath spoke up after being silent this entire time, "Are you a demon?" he asked sternly.

Oh great, here's the golden question…

"Well, sort of. But I'm not part of the Demon King's Army or anything." I responded looking straight at the man while trying my hardest not to glance at the woman.

"Pretty risky of you going out in the open in a place like this with an arm like that. You a halfling or something?" The man said as he looked at me seriously.

"Not exactly a halfling, but close. Besides, I already had people trying to kill me this morning, but thanks for your concern." I said.

"Uh-huh." The man grumbled before laying back and sinking his body deeper in the water.

The woman who was right next to the guy started to stand up and head towards the exit.

"C-can you please not stare at my body as I leave?" she requested as she covered her body with the towel.

" _Sigh_...alright…" Kazuma said as he looked the other way letting the woman leave in peace.

"So...you were saying?" Kazuma said boredly.

"Oh right, well the thing is between me and Darkness is that-" I would've explained myself once again but this time, I was cut more by more rudeness...

"Whoa! The Hot Springs in here is so big! As expected for a High Class Hotel." A familiar voice said along with some pretty frequent splashes

My blood started to turn cold.

"Hey, Megumin it's rude to swim in the Springs, even if we have it to ourselves."

"Come on Darkness, we're not in the mixed baths. No need to be so shy!" Megumin said

"Megumin, you're too bold. Hey, my Towel! Megumin, stop!" Darkness said shyly

Now I'm in hell, in literal Hell right now!

If I get caught by those two, logic might be thrown out the window before I could even explain myself.

While I was stressing about the fact of getting caught by those two, Kazuma looked completely normal and maybe even completely calm as the both of us heard what was going on in the Women's bath.

Before I knew it, Kazuma started to float over to the wall of the bath that separated the mixed bathing from women's bathing.

I grabbed his arm stopping him from getting any nearer to the wall.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Kazuma whispered to me, "Why are you denying me my right of passage?"

"I couldn't care less if you were peeping on some random girl and got the consequences, but I'm going to do everything in my power to stop you from listening in on Megumin and Darkness." I whispered back.

Kazuma smirked when he heard me, "Oh Tsukiyo, what an innocent boy you are. Alright then...Join me then!" he whispered with a evil grin.

"You must be out of you're fucking mind if you think I'm gonna join you." I whispered as I tried to drag him away from the wall.

"Oh? Well how about I expose the both of us? We bathe together, we fall together!" He whispered evilly.

And As if they were on fucking cue…

"Hey Megumin, stop! Kazuma might be on the other side listening in!" Darkness tried to whisper.

"Ughhh, you're right. Knowing Kazuma, he might've been listening in this whole time…" Megumin said in slight disgust.

"...But…" Megumin started to question, "What do you think are the chances Kazuma somehow persuaded Tsukiyo to join him?"

No, No, No, No!

"Tsukiyo wouldn't do something as shameless as Kazuma. I know for a fact he would go there by choice." Darkness said with full confidence.

Oh how I'm so happy Darkness has some kind of faith in me…

...it just hurts knowing that she's sort of right and wrong at the same time….

"I guess that's my cue…" Kazuma mumbled to himself.

"Hey guys-" Kazuma tried to speak out to the girls, but I instantly covered his mouth with my hand as I tried to drag him down in the bath.

"Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!" I said low enough where the two on the other side wouldn't hear me.

While trying to silence Kazuma and keep my dignity as a man, he started to thrash around the bath making sort of loud-ish splashing.

"Hey, did you hear something?" Megumin asked.

"Hmm? No, not really." Darkness replied, "But whoever is on the other side splashing sounds like they might be in trouble…"

Why does your sense of heroism have to appear at the worst times…

While I did have a good grip on Kazuma's mouth and head, the bath water was making my hand slip.

This let him get a couple of chances of breaking free…

...or he could just start to play dirty and use his create water to push me away from him.

"Oh, Hey guys….Fancy meeting...you two on the edge of this wall as well...Isn't that right….Tsukiyo!" Kazuma said after panting a little.

Fuck.

"Wha!?" Darkness gasped in surprise.

"I can't believe it. I already expected Kazuma from his personality, but….I thought you were better than that Tsukiyo." Megumin said in disappointment

"I am not here by choice!" I said trying to explain myself, "There is a very clear difference between coming here by choice and coming here with no choice.

"Hmm? So? Tell me the difference." Megumin interrogated me.

"The men's bath is broke and under construction. I'd rather not smell like a dead cow until morning, so I forced myself to come here." I explained. "I'm not here by choice, unlike Kazuma trying to catch a glimpse of some busty women."

"Hey, Hey, Hey! Don't try to turn this around on me!" Kazuma complained.

"Sorry, but I'm just trying to state the obvious!" I started to argue.

"So tell me…" Megumin said angrily, "Did he get a glimpse of a Busty woman?"

"Well in my perspective he was staring at one to the point of making her uncomfortable…" I said without much care in the world.

"You snitch!" Kazuma said angrily, "What happened to the Bro Code!? Both of us are still bound by it!

"Objection!" I said confidently, "You sullied the Bro Code by trying to expose me first!"

"That doesn't mean you could just rat me out like some kind of--Ow!" Kazuma got cut off as he got pelted in the head by a bar of soap.

"You and your constant talk of older women and their boobs!" Megumin shouted as she probably threw literally everything she could get her hands on over the wall, Chomusuke included.

"Whoa!" I barely caught it from getting dunked in the water.

"Hey, don't throw the cat!" Kazuma said as he got up and nursed his head.

"I've tried to wash it only to have scratches all over my arm, one of you go do it for eavesdropping on us!" Megumin said angrily.

Chomusuke was shaking in my arms as it got close to the water, frightened to the point where he dug its claws in my arm to make sure it didn't fall off.

This hurt a lot.

Seriously, this hurts like a bitch!

Let go cat! Stop digging your claws in my arm!

I let it go onto the stone path and it ran as far away from the water as possible near one of the corners.

I know cats and water don't mix well, but that's but overkill…

Kazuma sighed to himself as he started to get up from the bath.

"Where're you going?" I asked as I wiped off the bloodstains from my arm.

"Back to the Inn, my moods already spoiled…" He said bitterly.

He sluggishly got out of the bath and walked out with a disappointed face.

I watched him walk out along with the other dude who was also on the bath with me. He didn't look impressed as he just laid back down onto the bath.

I laid back onto the wall that separated the mixed and womens bath as I tried it relax knowing that part of my standing with Darkness and Megumin has partly crumbled.

I came here to relax from bullshit popping up from random places and somehow it always finds a way to find me…

Feeling sort of exhausted from everything that's happened so far, I felt my eyelids get very heavy as I started to nod off.

Alright well, I might as well get out and take a nap. I'd rather not fall asleep here and somewhat drown.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _And I wouldn't save you if you did fall asleep here._

Noted

~ ~ ~ ~

Alright, I'm getting out.

"Kazuma already left, so you guys can bathe in peace. I'm gonna catch a nap." I called out towards the wall.

As I got out of the water, Chomusuke ran towards me and jumped in my arms.

Yup, me and him? Her? I forgot what gender it was, but regardless we just wanted to leave at this point.

Since Megumin did tell me and Kazuma to wash it, I might as well do so back at the Inn.

As I dried myself off and got my clothes on, I half expected Darkness to come rushing out to join me on the way back, but surprisingly and thankfully she didn't.

The hot springs is once in a year or two occasion that she should take full advantage of, and I don't want to rob her of relaxing at a Hot Spring just so she can waste 5-10 minutes to walk with me back to the room…

...well...that and I'm a bit too embarrassed to look her in the eye after discovering that I was in the mixed bath with Kazuma…

As I got closer to my room, I could already hear Aqua sobbing loudly from outside the room.

I entered the room and walked passed her sobbing on Wiz's lap blubbering about something while Kazuma sat across them with a bored look.

"O-oh Welcome back Tsukiyo...I know I don't ask much favours, but could you do me one right now? Aqua's sobbing purified tears and it feels like needles hitting my lap, could you please get her off?" Wiz asked while in slight pain.

Kazuma snapped out of his small trance for a moment only to grab Aqua's hair and drag her from Wiz's lap into a bathroom where there was one toilet. He then closed the door and propped it with a chair.

"Better?" He asked in a monotone voice.

"Y-yeah, but don't you think that's a bit cruel?" Wiz asked.

"Nah, it's just right." Me and Kazuma said at the same time

"Besides, what's she crying about this time?" I asked as I prepped a nearby sink with warm water to wash Chomusuke.

"She's crying about the fact that she was kicked out from the Hot Springs from accidentally turning the water in the women's bath into purified water. She also busted a pipe from the Men's bath when she tried to do a trick that involved existing water…" Wiz listed out

Aqua started to sob louder from the bathroom after hearing Wiz say that, "B-b-but I-i-i'm their G-g-goddess! They shouldn't d-do this to their G-g-g-Goddess!"

I unknowingly had a death grip on Chomusuke after hearing this while trying to wash it. It Squirmed and meowed loudly, while it tried biting my hand trying to get out.

I let it go after finally feeling the pain as it jumped out of the water and onto Wiz's lap.

"Here, let me wash it. You look tired." Wiz said as she started to caress Chomusuke's head.

Wiz, the lifesaver and severely patient lich god, comes to my rescue.

I thanked Wiz as I left the girls' room and went over to the room where me and Kazuma would stay for the night.

I flopped flat on the bed as I knocked out into dreamland in an instant.

Like literal dreamland.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ _Dream Space_ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I stood right in the yard, right in front of a large gated stone mansion with bushes and small trees around the gate and house.

In front of the mansion a pretty empty landscape with vibrant green grass and one large tree that gave out a good amount of shade.

Strangely enough, I could faintly hear classical violins playing in the background with a calm melody (DMC5 OST - Legacy Instrumental Vers.)

Sitting on that shade was Vergil but without his coat. He wore a black woven style button up shirt with gold trim and accents.

He was looking at a cityscape that was overlooked by the mansion since it seemed to be on a hill.

While he wasn't smiling entirely, you could tell that he seemed peaceful and actually happy as he sat there.

He noticed me from where he was sitting.

He didn't move an inch, but just waved over to me to come sit with him.

Despite having that 'issue' with Vergil, seeing him in a casual place without his cold glare made him a bit more approachable than normal.

I walked over to the shade where he was sitting at and sat right next to him as we started our talk, but somehow just noticed that he looks a bit older.

It was just me and Vergil alone in front of this house.

"So...where are we?" I asked.

As I looked around, nothing seemed familiar at the very least, but I could definitely tell that this was in the modern present.

"Take a guess." Vergil said, but it wasn't in his usual cold voice, it was a casual one at the very least.

"Alright then." I said as I took in the scenery around us and around the house.

I thought for a while as I took in the scenery around us and made a wild guess.

"You and Dante's home?" I guessed.

"Correct. 12207 Belmont Drive; Red Grave City, United Kingdom." He stated out. "It's the childhood home me and Dante used to live in with our mother. Right before

Mundus sent his lackeys to kill her."

"Sorry, you had to bring that up." I apologised

"As much as I wouldn't like to admit it, I'm still hung up about it. Even after Dante had already taken down Mundus." Vergil said.

"Is this where you usually hang out at whenever you're not in your human form?" I asked.

"Yeah. In my past life, wherever I go, the demons would always follow me, bringing ruin with them." He said, "This is the only place I have where they can't follow me, somewhere where I can be at peace."

"Well, you have the Yamato, so it's not like they can overpower you can they?" I said, Vergil has been demon hunting longer than I've lived and then some, so it shouldn't be much of a problem for him to take them down by himself.

"You're right, but those aren't the kind of demons I'm talking about." He said correcting me "The demons that follow me are the ones from Mallet Island, and from when I used to be Nelo Angelo."

"Mallet Island?" I said confused.

Vergil chuckled to himself for a bit when he heard me, "Right, you haven't played that game…."

Vergil started to explain his story to me, "When me and Dante were in our teens, we did not see eye to eye on many things, his affinity with guns, my strict attitude for using the blade only, and my obsession for power.

"Of course, we fought from time to time because of it resulting in either one of us getting impaled by our blades or knocked unconscious from our wounds. One thing lead to another and I was manipulated by someone in fully resurrecting Temen-Ni-Gru, a tower filled with Devil Worshippers holding Sparda's power, killing hundreds of thousands of people in order to obtain said power.

"I lured Dante to the tower in hopes of defeating him and taking the other amulet he holds to forge the Sparda and unlock the tower, but in doing so I failed to complete my task and lost to Dante as I fell down to hell. Soon after that, I foolishly tried to take on the Prince of Darkness, Mundus, only to fail and become a pawn of his.

"I fought Dante later on in Mallet Island along with Mundus' other pawns, Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare. While I was under Mundus' mind control, I recognized the amulet that our mother gave us and started to feel the restrained memories rush back in my head. Mundus' control would continuously repress these memories whenever they come up, but within each minute I fought him, the memories always came back.

"It took me nearly dying to break free from Mundus' control, but by then it was already too late. All the damage had been done, I had no way to atone."

"Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare? Do you think V might be-" I wanted to ask Vergil, but it seems that he already knew what I was going to ask.

"I don't know for sure, but something about him is suspicious, yet familiar." Vergil said, "Compared to the last time I saw Griffon, he wasn't nearly as foul-mouthed or regular sized as what we saw from our trip here."

"We can only hope that, that person, V, does not become our enemy in the near future. Things may get very complicated if he does." He said.

"But aside from that issue, there's something else we need to address…" he said before turning to me.

"You had a vision back when we were travelling to the Hot Springs. Tell me, What did you see?" He asked with a serious face.

Should I tell him?

Part of me wanted to steele my resolve and face him completely if I did tell him what I saw, but a small part of me wants to cower away since I'm scared of what he might do when I tell him...

….you know what?

I'll just tell him…

Even if 'that day' does come and I can't trust Vergil anymore, I might as well trust the one who has my back and is my Mentor of sorts.

I can only hide it for so long before it would've started eating me out from the inside...

"The vision I had back at the camp...it showed that you're body was falling apart, like it was crumbling. With that, you were able to rip off my demon arm and still retain your human form. I was bleeding out, while you impaled Kosuke onto a tree with his sword, it was at that time that V came up to me and drug me out of wherever we were through a portal." I said as I finally confessed what I saw.

My heartbeat was beating loudly to the point where I heard it in my ears and felt it beat against my chest.

"Is that so…" Vergil finally said after staying quiet for a minute or two.

That was what Vergil said before he continued to look into the distance at Red Grave City

He didn't kill me, he didn't try to kill me, nor did he try to attempt to harm me in anyway shape or form.

He just looked into the cityscape.

While I wanted to speak up, there wasn't anything I could say to break the awkward silence between us until Vergil broke the silence.

"Tsukiyo, give me your necklace for a moment." He said as he held up his hand.

I wasn't sure why he wanted my necklace but he seemed pretty serious, so I took off my necklace and placed it in his hand.

He closed his hand tightly as started to concentrate fiercely as his hand glowed with dark blue energy being condensed in his hand.

By the time he re-opened his hand, my necklace that was once a dark Garnet color now looked like it was pulsing with power.

"I've induced some of my demon magic in the necklace with enough power to help you out." He said as he gave me back my necklace, "Keep with you at all times. When that day comes and I become a shattered husk like you say, I'm afraid you'll need all the help you can get to stop me, and if you have no other choice, then you'll need even more to put me down…"

"No other choice, huh?" I said to myself as I held the gem in my hand.

"The right choice is almost always the hardest one to choose, but even so, we must make that choice…" Vergil said before getting silent.

Me and Vergil spent the rest of the time looking into the city where the clouds moved slowly from one side to the other.

It really was peaceful here.

We stayed like this for a while until Vergil spoke again, "Your nap is almost up, you'll be waking up in a couple of minutes."

To be honest, I really didn't want to leave the mansion. It was the most peace I've had in a long time, with all the fighting, annoyances, and headaches, this was really relaxing for me.

I noticed that my body was starting to get a bit transparent with each second that passed by.

"Good luck with trying to deal with what's going on, you're gonna need it." Vergil said with a smirk.

"Thanks, I really will." I said before wanting to ask one more question, "But before I leave here, can I ask why you wanted more power?"

Vergil didn't moved from his spot as he laid back onto the grass, "Same reason as everyone else, We want power to protect the ones we hold dear to us. For me, I just want to prevent what happened before so it doesn't have to happen again…"

That was the last thing he said before I fully disappeared from the mansion and woke up.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

So, it's been a year since I started this fic.

June, 23 2018. 1 year, 180 bookmarks, 132 likes, and 50 chapters later.

Now, I Intentionally waited a week later to post this cause if I posted this and stuck to my regular schedule, I would've missed the week.

I usually save this at the end of every Vol. that I post, but this week is just as important.

Thanks for reading this, seriously.

When I started this story, I was honestly fuckng around and wasn't taking this as seriously as I am now.

I had fun fucking around, and I'm having fun now taking this story seriously and wanting to make it a good story.

Of course, I will get burnt out again later, but by then It might be closer to the end of the story than where I am right now.

But hey, that's for later. I hope you guys can continue reading regardless of you having an account or not, if not, oh well then!

It's already been 3 weeks since I started working, and mandatory overtime sucks, but at least it's only 4 hours Saturday and Sunday.

Don't worry, I'm not overworking myself. I might not have enough time to fuck around, but I'm getting money so all is good.

By the way, have you guys heard of 'Code Vein'?

Just discovered it recently, and I really want to play it now.

For those who don't know what the game is, it's basically Anime Dark Souls.

But, aside from that, for my fellow gamers reading this, I know I'm one week late but….

...let's talk E3…

Honestly, this E3 was sort of underwhelming compared to last year where shit got really hyped as fuck and people went apeshit.

Xbox showcase was ok, but my man Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 was the main attraction to make everything great. They showed off the next Forza Horizon 4 expansion which I had a clue on since leaks. Borderlands 3 looks promising but I need more gameplay to be convinced.

Ubisoft had my attention for most of the time since I play a good amount of Ubi games (R6 Siege, Ghost Recon, Crew 2, Division), and that was before they pulled out the pupper which got my full attention. First thing, Rainbow Six Quarantine, I need gameplay ASAP. Ghost Recon Breakpoint, although looks good looks similar to Wildlands, but I need to play beta to see if it's good or not. Old Granny in Watch Dog Legion, man...the memes will be great.

Bethesda was...meh...aside from Doom Eternal, there wasn't much to see. Fallout 76 got Battle Royale which makes to game now….uh...I don't even know anymore...But Ghostwore, on the other hand, that game has potential, like Hideo Kojima like potential in terms of sci-fi...

Square Enix, #2 contender for top spot in E3 2019. They outdone themselves with the FF7 remake gameplay, trailer and hype. KH3 DLC for the first time, instant buy because lore and Playable Roxas, sucks that I saw the leak before the show. Marvel Avengers, I'm interested in the game but I'm not sure how it'll play out, need more gameplay.

Nintendo, just like last year I think, won the entire thing again. Holy shit, they came out of the doors swinging with no rest. Breath of the Wild Sequel, Luigi's mansion 3, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Chibi Zelda game, Dragon Quest Hero and Banjo-Kazooie for smash, I feel like people might have damaged their voice from all the hype and screaming.

Those are my opinions, wanna ask something go ahead.

Edit: I wanna ask everyone right now of their opinion of Darkness and how she acts. Am I normalizing her too much or is she fine the way I write her to be? I feel like I might be taking away some of her charm...

 **General Responses:**

Oran (Guest):

-Yeah, I hate the axis cultist just as much as I hate Aqua herself, but the episodes about them were pretty funny. While I would like to have some incredible violence happen with Tsukiyo, I can't do that sadly because it would somehow need to fit in with the story and I don't have enough big pp energy power to make up a convoluted plot to make it work out, but I might do something similar.

JourneyToTheEnd:

-As of right now, Vergil doesn't know who V is truly. He knows he's a possible threat, but that's all. Just as I told Oran, I really want to add some violence towards the axis cult, but can't because my iq smol. Aside from exorcising and and healing, Aqua really isn't that useful.

Funny thing about the bracelet scene, I really wanted to do the necklace thing just like in DMC4 and have some kind of necklace that was sort of similar to the one Tsukiyo has, but I decided against it since It might've been a bit too cliche/overdone, so bracelet it was.

DoortoLight47:

-Violence my guy, I want to add it but can't. His DT that he showed off back in the Cafe will come back to bite him in the ass next chapter.

Meiji (Guest):

I can only hope that I can write out something similar, but hey I can only hope.

(Worst KH Character) Terra (Guest)

-Overly Trusting and gullible are the same thing! I don't know why they have that in his description, it's a lie.

Terra doesn't become master - becomes edge lord like Vergil to seek more power - basically causes the entire KH plot to happen - too trusting of Xehanort doesn't realise until Eraqus gets oof'ed. BRUH. He only redeemed himself at the end of KH3 where he made that emotional reunion.

Strangely enough, I haven't really read any Romance Light novels. I only go for the manga as of right now, but that might change in the future.

Harem LN's are a different story, you and I both know shit isn't gonna happen between the main pair for a long ass time, while the community will ship another better pair.

Fucking Nisekoi started a big ass war back then…

DxHologram:

-Yeah you do need both amulets to awaken the Sparda to its full power. Vergil himself has an amulet with him. The real question is, whether or not Kosuke has one as well.

Trust me when I say this, shits gonna go down when the slime boss happens. While I haven't written down the chapter just yet, (or even started it) I do have some big changes in mind for the event and after. It'll definitely give me more material to write off of and it might just surprise a few of you.

Gen2324:

-There will be more training, trust me, You're probably gonna enjoy it when that chapter comes out.

Also, Tsukiyo can dodge most attacks on his own, it's just surprise attacks that'll leave him off guard.

Virtue (Guest):

-I mean, it sort of is Tsukiyo's fault that he has a demon arm since he asked for it, but the way the axis cult deals with people is sort of...normal(?) for them.

Morals (Guest):

-You know, I sort of wonder about that a lot whenever I'm writing. When I type down the interactions between Tsukiyo and Darkness, I feel like I'm toning down Darkness a bit too much and normalizing her. I don't know if It takes away from her charm or not, but her masochistic tendencies are only coming out whenever its for plot or convenience…

Not sure how I feel, I'd really like some feedback on it.

Edit: Might be better if I ask everyone reading this.

Tsukiyo, on the other hand, I can handle since he's a character who can naturally grow, personality wise.

Adis (Guest):

lmao kek.

Bento (Lunchbox Guest):

Don't worry, I'll add it in someday.

Nora (Guest):

Thanks.


	51. Unholy Cat and Demon Mouse

You know, when I wake up, I like to wake up to some peace and quiet you know?

I wake up, stretch some of my limbs for moment, head to the bathroom, and get ready for the day. Normal stuff like that.

But on this day where I was staying at a city where people are not only assholes, but whorship a lazy con artist of a goddess, my "morning" was met with a night sky and a FUCKING MOB TRYING BUST MY GODDAMN DOOR DOWN!

What the fuck have I just woken up to?!

I got up from my bed quickly and looked around.

"Ah Tsukiyo! For fucks sake, you're finally up!" Kazuma said as he and Darkness were trying to hold the door from getting open.

It seems that everyone was here in the room that me and Kazuma shared.

Wiz was in a panic, Megumin looked like she was having Vietnam flashbacks, and Aqua was bawling like usual.

"I go to sleep for a couple of hours and everything has gone to shit, what the fuck did you guys do!?" I said as I tried to help keep the door shut.

"A couple hours!? It's been a day and a half since you last woke up, are you some kind of narcoleptic freak!?" Kazuma complained, "Aside from that, this is all Aqua's fault!"

"I-it's n-n-not my f-f-fault!" Aqua bawled.

"Not only did she purify the water in the Hot Springs, twice! But she tried to proclaim her goddliness to everyone, making everyone hate her. Because of all the shit that made people hate her, when the Hot Springs water turned poisonous everyone turned to us thinking we're the source!" Kazuma complained.

"Goddammit Aqua!" I also complained.

"Why is everyone blaming me for this?! I'm Innocent!" She bawled again

After another 5-10 minutes of the cultist trying to force open the door, we were able to get a breather after we propped the door closed with a small bookshelf, a coffee table, and the frames of me and Kazuma's bed.

"Ok!" Kazuma said as the 6 of us gathered up, "We need some kind of plan to get out of here!"

"We can't leave my people to be poisoned! All of them might be killed off!" Aqua said trying to persuade us to help.

"So what's the problem with that?" Me, Megumin, and Kazuma said in a trio.

Aqua screamed in horror as she heard our response, "What's wrong with you people!? Don't you know my goddess powers will diminish if my followers are all dead!? I expected this much from Tsukiyo and Kazuma, but not you too Megumin!"

"You have no idea the horrors of what I saw yesterday, I'm ok with this place burning down..." Megumin said in a dark voice before she returned to getting her flashbacks.

"Megumin!" Aqua said as she was shaking Megumin's shoulders violently

"A-Aqua, please calm down…" Wiz said submissively as she tried to calm her down.

Aqua instantly turned to Wiz for some kind of reassurance, "Wiz!" She said in false hope, "The Axis cult took care of you in this room while you were knocked out, you'll support my decision on this, right!? RIGHT!?" Aqua pressured

"W-well…" Wiz said as she hesitated to give Aqua an honest answer.

Aqua fell to her knees as she wept quietly, "My Kingdom is about to collapse as its people are trying to kick me out ...and I'm in a room filled with people who couldn't care less…."

You know, for all the shit I give Aqua, and for good reasons too, seeing her like this in a broken down state where she's lost all hope of possibly saving her people...

...is kinda amusing….

Now I know what you're thinking, and I want you to fucking stop! This does not make me a sadist by any terms!

With Aqua acting all high and mighty most of the time, especially very recently where she and Kazuma grew the fattest of heads, you could say that this is something like Karma.

"Aqua," Darkness spoke up as she crouched down to Aqua's level, "I'll help you save your people. Don't worry, we'll stop the poison before it kills anyone!" she said hopeful and bright.

Aqua looked up to Darkness and saw a glimmer of some kind of hope for her people, she instantly launched into Darkness arms and thanked her while sniffling a lot.

Considering Darkness' nature, even if she is from a different cult from Aqua, a Crusader still has the job of protecting the people in need.

I sighed to myself as I sell my soul to the Devil, or at least something close to it, "Alright well, if Darkness is going to get rid of the poison, then so will I. She doesn't have her armour so I'm gonna have to make sure she doesn't get hurt." I proclaim.

Megumin joined in as she also wanted to help, "While I would like to see this place burn and not come back here ever again, I can't let a friend of mine go out and face danger alone, Count me in."

"UGH! Why are you guys throwing away your sense of reason!? They're trying to kill us outside, and you want to save them?!" Kazuma complained.

We all stared at Kazuma awkwardly until it made him uncomfortable, "Stop! Stop! Stop! Fine, I'll help you guys out, but you owe me big time!"

While we would've loved to continue to chat more and bond as a fami- I mean party, we weren't given that kind of luxury since one of the rioters threw a molotov, yes a fucking molotov while magic exists in this world, towards us as it crashed threw our window.

"Holy shit! The rioters are getting more and more crazier, we need an actual plan before we burn to death!" Kazuma said as he panicked.

He used his 'create water' to put out the fire before it was able to spread to anything extremely flammable.

Aqua, after finally regaining her composure from bawling her eyes out, spoke out with a plan.

"If I remember right from what the Inn owner told me, the water source of the Hot Springs is behind the Main base of the Axis cult on a mountain. If we can get there without much trouble I could purify the source and clean out all the poison." She said as wiped some of her tears away.

"Ok, there's our plan! Any Objections?" Kazuma said in a hurry.

"Well yeah. How the hell do we get out with the entire town outside ready to hang us?" I questioned him.

He stayed silent for a while before having a look of an idea in his eyes.

He came over to me with a straight face and innocent-ish smile, "I need you to be our bait." He said confidently.

"Excuse me but what?" I questioned.

"Ok, hear me out on this, this might be a really good idea!" Kazuma said with much more confidence.

"Might be!? I'm being voted to be bait for you guys, if I get crucified by them you know I'm gonna-" I was cut off by Kazuma as he tried to persuade me.

"Please do this Tsukiyo, you're the only person out of all of us who can be bait, please, please, please!" he started to beg.

Aqua started to beg with Kazuma too, "Please Tsukiyo, it's for my people!"

Man, fuck your people! I'm only doing this for Darkness since A) I like her a lot, B) she doesn't have her armour that she would usually bring, and C) I don't feel like having a 10 mil. bounty on my head if anything happens to her.

It was at this time that Darkness was joining Kazuma and Aqua in persuading me.

"Tsukiyo, just for this one time please do this. For me?" She pleaded innocently.

….And now she takes our relationship for granted as she does this…

...doesn't mean I'll reject it though..

"...ok fine." I said sheepishly.

"Wow, so easy." Kazuma said

"Very easy indeed." Aqua chimed in

"Too easy." Megumin added- hold on, she didn't even add anything in this conversation! Does she even have a right to say that!?

While I would've loved to smack each of them in the side of the head for saying that, we were running on borrowed time.

"Ok...how do you want me to be bait…" I begrudgingly said.

"Oh that's easy, the Axis hates everything unholy so you being yourself is just fine. If you really want to drive them away, then you might wanna use your demon form." Aqua said acting as if she didn't say anything wrong.

"So you want me to go into my 'Demon form' (Devil Trigger) to distract them and take them away from here?" I said trying to make sense of this plan.

"See? You already know the plan from start to finish, you really are the perfect bait for this job!" Kazuma said innocently.

I'm this close, THIS CLOSE, to bitch slapping him.

"Ok, let's say I go out there and you guys managed to get away from them, how am I gonna regroup with you guys?" I asked

"Don't worry, the Hot Spring source itself is massive so you can't miss it." Aqua said reassuring me.

"...ok, so worst case scenario…" I spoke up once again stalling for time.

Aqua seemed to have snapped a bit since she was in a hurry to save her followers of con artists, horrible people, and people I'd rather not save, "Just get out there and get their attention!" she yelled.

"Ok fine, fine!" I said as I got up.

Before I turned on my Devil Trigger and busted out through the window, I took off the Red Queen and handed it to Darkness.

"I'm not sure if you guys are gonna run into trouble, but I'll at least give you this to protect yourself. Stay safe, ok?" I said.

She took the Red Queen in both hands and was surprised to see it weigh a bit more than her normal broadsword.

"Yeah, I will. You stay safe too." Darkness said as she hung the sword on her back.

I turned on my Devil Trigger as I busted the window open and used my Snatch ability to bring myself to another building that was nearby.

This caught the attention of some of the rioters but most were still focused on the building.

I started to build up my voice as I shouted from the rooftops towards the ground, "Hey Axis cult! You're goddess is a good for nothing alcoholic bitch with nothing going on for her! In fact! Let me fix this statue for you guys!"

I ran from rooftop to rooftop heading towards the square where the Statue of Aqua was, and by the time I was close enough to 'renovate' it, I pulled out my the Blue Rose and fired off all 3 shots on the Statues face.

Not only that, but I also used my Devil Arm to destroy the top half of the statue by summoning the bigger spectral version of my arm to punch the ever living shit out the statue leaving it a crumbled mess.

While I was a good distance away from the Inn the rest of the party was staying at, I could strangely hear Aqua's shriek of horror and shock cleary as if she was standing right next to me.

Saying that I've kicked the hornet's nest nest was an understatement when the Axis Cultists saw what I did. No, what I did was basically grabbed the hornets nest, curb stomped it, and yeeted it towards the trash (where it belongs. -Konran.)

I'm not gonna lie, that was pretty fun.

But what isn't fun is the fact that the entire town is now after my head and then some.

Ok, Part one: Get their attention, Done. Part two: Don't get Crucified…

I started running my ass off as in the street as I was getting chased by the entire town. While I would've used Snatch to jump on the rooftops to escape, all the buildings were made similarly where there weren't any ledges to grab onto.

It also doesn't help that a lot of them were chanting 'Turn Undead' and summoning the runes ahead of me hoping I'd step on one, so now I'm zig zagging my way across the street.

I ran for what seemed like forever and made my way through the streets only end up running through the slums of the city where, not only were there dark spots, but also some spots that were tight and hard to reach (Giggity, I swear that wasn't planned.)

I was somewhat able to hide my body as I turned off my Devil Trigger while staying inside a broken down building where some of the windows were boarded up.

"Man...they're really persist-" I said while panting before shutting my own mouth up. I held my breath as the mob started to search around the area to see where I'd gone.

"Search the Area! Don't hesitate to burn a building down if you feel like he's there!" One of the angry rioters said.

I didn't move an inch for a solid 20 minutes before finding some old cans and rocks and throwing them towards other buildings to try and throw the cult off my trail.

Of course my spot didn't last forever as some people were trying to shine some light into the building I was at.

Moving away from the boarded up windows and doors, I slowly made my way inside the building going upstairs and away from the windows.

It didn't help that the stairs were squeaking with each step that I took, giving away my position.

It didn't take long for the Axis cult to start lighting up the building with more fire and 'Turn Undead' spells.

I was able to get to the roof and parkour my way from rooftop to rooftop hopefully thinking that the cultist were convinced enough to think that I was burned alive in that building.

Since I've ran from one side of the town to the other, I was twice as far from the Mountain than I originally was when I had to make myself bait.

I stopped jumping from building to building and fell on my knees from exhaustion to try and catch my breath.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Don't slow down. I feel a heavy presence of demonic energy coming from- no wait, there's multiple of them..._

What?!

 _Trust me, one of those energy levels is much higher than the rest, maybe a boss, but the rest are small fry compared to him._

You think they might be lesser demons?

 _Possibly, but there are multiple patches of them throughout the mountain._

If they're just regular demons, then Aqua should have no problem taking care of them, but I don't know how long she can last.

I have to hurry.

~ ~ ~ ~

I picked myself up and made a mad dash towards the mountain top while ignoring the burning sensation that pained me in my legs.

After hopping from one rooftop to another I finally managed to get near the mountain and follow the trail that lead up the Hot Spring's source.

But before I could get to the main mountain, I was stopped by two guards who were guarding the entrance of the source.

"Halt! None shall pass from this point on!" One of the guards yelled out

"You don't understand you gotta let me through!" I tried to persuade them, but they started to get their guards and point their spears at me when they saw my arm.

"What's with your arm? Doesn't look too healthy to me. Almost looks like a demon-" One of the guards stopped what he was saying and had a look as if be realised something.

"W-wait, are you not the person Lady Dustiness mentioned before!?" he said as he started to put his spear down, "A young adventurer with the arm of a demon, are you not Tsukiyo?!"

"Yes, that is me! Now you have to let me through, I have to get them asap!" I said in a rushed tone.

"Right! Let me get the gate open!" One of the guards said, but the other one wasn't convinced since he still had his spear up.

"How do we know you're not not someone else, prove that you're Tsukiyo!" the other guard said.

Are you fucking kidding me!?

I barely know this man and he's trying to say, 'Oh well if you're the real Tsukiyo, do something only the real one would!', like motherfucker! I'm on borrowed time! I don't have time to deal with this shit!

I took a breath in and tried not to explode when I pulled out my adventurer card and walked up to him, "You want proof? Fine! Look! Look at it! Look at the name, that says 'Tsukiyo Fucking Nakano'!" I said with gritted teeth.

The guard that still had his spear up was starting to get really anxious when I started walking closer to him, "Hey, Hey! Step back!" he said scaredly as he started to get really aggressive.

The other guard who believed me started to try and calm down the guard who was freaking out, "Calm down! This is the Adventurer that Lady Dustiness told us about, we have to let him through!"

The other guard still had his spear up in defence, and at this point I really don't care anymore.

"Ok, well I'm just gonna hop the fence. This dude's either on some drugs or he's just really fucking dumb." I said as I walked away from the guard with his spear up.

"H-hey! Halt I say!" The guard with his spear up said as he tried to block me.

"Jesus dude! What the hell do you want-" I was just about to bitch and moan at him until the guard in question was tackled by something lanky and deformed.

"Agh! What the!? Ah! AHH! AAAAAHHH!" The guard started to shriek in pain and fear as what tackled him used it's praying mantis like arms to continuously jab and stab his face.

"What...what is that thing?!" The other guard said as he started to raise his spear towards the thing.

Whatever this fucking thing was that attacked one of the guard, it was fucking cursed.

The easiest description I can give this...thing...was a human sized deformed and demonised praying mantis.

I honestly felt sick just looking at this thing, with all the bulged out and bone thin spots it had in its body, the most disturbing feature probably would've been the fact that it had 3 human heads fused together with some pincers as mouths (Empusa, the most cursed looking lesser demon)

~ ~ ~ ~

 _This might be what's swarming the mountain, I can feel the demonic energy coming off this thing._

 _Take it down now so we can exterminate the rest!_

~ ~ ~ ~

While I did reach for my pistol and aimed at the humanoid bug, my hand started to tremble as my heartbeat started to rise.

Part of me couldn't pull the trigger no matter how much force I put in my fingers.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _What are you doing?! Pull the trigger now!_

~ ~ ~ ~

My mind started to race as memories from two months ago of me killing those guards started flashing back in my mind.

While the humanoid bug demon would've impaled me at this point, the guard protected me with his spear, blocking the arms of the demon from stabbing me.

"H-hey! Snap out of it, I have to call reinforcements while you head to where Lady Dustiness is!" The guard said as he struggled to keep the bug demon away.

My demon arm moved on it's own as it aimed the Blue Rose towards the demons head and fired off all 3 shots.

The demon fell back and died as if it was a regular bug with its arm and legs closed to together while laying on it's back.

"T-thanks for that," The guard said as he turned behind him and opened the gate that lead towards the Hot Spring Source, "Here, you go on ahead. I have to call the capitol for back up!"

The guard ran down the mountain only leaving me by myself.

My arm started to glow for a bit as Vergil came out of there and slapped me across the face, "Why didn't you pull the trigger! If that guard hadn't saved you, you would've been dead by now!" He said harshly.

I finally regained most of my senses as my face started to sting a bit.

"That demon...it looked human and I-" I tried to say, but Vergil cut me off, "-Hesitated. You hesitated because it looked human." He said coldly.

"Demons will take on many shapes and forms to get you to hesitate from killing them. That's why they're demons. They could take shape of you best friend, your loved ones, even your own mother, but that shouldn't stop a demon hunter." He continued.

"We exterminate when no other can, that's why we're Demon Hunters. It's best to let go of these feelings when facing them. When you hesitate, they won't." Vergil said as he fused back into my arm.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Change of plans. Go meet up with your team and avoid all demons getting there, if you can't fight, then go hide and run away._

~ ~ ~ ~

While those words did sting, I had to ignore them for the time being and meet back up with Kazuma and co.

As easy as it sounds, the mountain path had clusters and clusters of those things spread throughout the path.

Thankfully thought, I was able to catch up with the rest of the party as they fought off the bug demons.

For the most part, it seems that Kazuma and Darkness did a good job at keeping them away while Wiz used some of her magic to kill them, but this couldn't go on longer since it looked like they were exhausted and was getting surrounded by them.

I pulled out my pistol once again, and just like what happened before, my hand trembled as I struggled to pull the trigger.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _I'm not gonna pull the trigger for you this time. This decision is all yours._

 _Let them get overrun and watch helplessly, or steel your nerves and save them?_

 _The answer should be obvious._

~ ~ ~ ~

Vergil's words echoed in my mind.

He's right, the answer is obvious...

...And here I am being useless and hesitating while my party get overrun.

While I was busy blaming myself in my head, I heard a cry of pain/pleasure come from the group.

Darkness was there holding her left arm as there was a medium gash while some of her clothes were tattered.

Once again, just like a couple months ago back in the village, I used my Devil Trigger out of anger from the fact that I was always too late to do something before someone got hurt.

Because of the sheer amount of power I was exerting from the DT, all the demons' attention was turned to me as they started to ignore the party.

With the Yamato in my hands, all the Demons dashed towards me like an army of ants towards a picnic basket.

It's a real shame that all of them rushed towards me at one time, it didn't matter how many of them were there since I was cutting them down Mercilessly and Quickly, exactly how Yamato was meant to used.

With all the demons surrounding me, I made one swift horizontal slash all around me as some heads came off of the bodies.

It didn't take long for me to go all out as I used my demon arm to grab some of the demons legs and slam one onto others, and grab a couple of their heads just to execute them with the Rose.

I didn't even dodge their attacks when they tried to swipe their claws at me, I usually braved the hit as I grabbed their arms, tore it off, and used it to stab other demons in their heads or body.

I went on an utter rampage as I sliced, diced, shot, and literally tore demons apart from the seething anger I was going through.

I guess you could say that I was the true demon from the way things were looking,

From getting overrun to blatant annihilation, I decimated every single demon that stood in my way using my anger as a means of motivation.

By the time I was done with killing all the demons that overran Kazuma and the others, I was completely soaked in demon blood and didn't feel any better than how I felt before.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Sorry for posting this chapter late, I just finished watching the new Danmachi movie cause it made me sad in the end, like I was expecting any feels from that movie!

Other than that, it's been a pretty rough couple of weeks for the Internet.

So much shit going on from Etika, to the Camps on the border, to the pretty bad 4th of July experience, along with more stuff that I'm probably forgetting.

Aside from life and Internet stuff being toxic and shitty, I might not be posting an update on the 27th/28th since I won't have my laptop on me for a week because of family gatherings.

Next chapter might be the Vol. 4 Finale, so look forward to a couple of changes.

Wasn't much to respond to since most reviews seemed to be a, well, review.

Well that, or I was probably too lazy today to write down some responses.


	52. Battle on the Mountain Top

The Five of them rushed over to where I was after all the demons' bodies had evaporated into thin air.

"Alright, nice murder spree! Now If you don't mind, I'm gonna plug my nose and stay away from you for awhile. Okay? Okay." Kazuma said as he covered his nose.

I ignored most of the party as the first one I went to was Darkness.

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness called out happily, "We were overwhelmed and I was forced to be used as a shield to protect my comrades! It felt amazing, Did you see me?!" she said in exciting tone while blushing.

I was focused more on the gash in her arm as I ignored her usual ramblings, "I wasn't able here quick enough…" I said as I already started to blame myself.

"O-oh, this? This is nothing, you don't have to worry about it! One of those monsters caught me off guard as I protecting the team! It's nothing!" Darkness said trying to distract me from her wound, "Besides, we have Aqua to heal me for the most part, so it'll be like it was never there."

"But still…" I tried to say, but Darkness cut me off from blaming myself further.

"It's alright, I don't have the highest defense for no reason! Trust me, I've been through worse." She said, reassuring me.

Kazuma soon spoke up as well, but in a tone seeming as if I've gone through some kind of PTSD episode, "Hey there buddy, you okay? Do you need to take some time to rest?" He said in a gentle tone.

Megumin smacked him in the back of his head with her staff, "Ow! What?" Kazuma complained.

Megumin then turned to me with a gentle smile, "Don't worry Tsukiyo, you can rest. Kazuma should be able to take out the rest." she said with sincerity.

"What?! you expect me to kill those bug things?! Hell no! They're already creepy enough from afar, I don't want to get up close and personal!" Kazuma complained.

"Don't worry, those bug things are demons, Aqua can just exercise them on our way through." I said while wiping the demon blood from my face.

Aqua had a look of realisation and cockiness as soon as she heard me, "They're Demons?! Demons?! In a Base of the Axis Cult?! Unacceptable! Come on Kazuma we need to exterminate them for the betterment of my people!" She said in a gung-ho attitude.

Aqua went on ahead dragging Kazuma and Megumin along while Darkness was still trying to comfort me and Wiz just wasn't sure of what to do or who to follow.

"Haha, It's seems like we've been left behind, come on let's join them before they get themselves into trouble." Darkness said as she held her wound and started to walk ahead.

I tried to do the same only to almost fall to the ground after taking 1 step. I caught myself before I was able to faceplant on the ground.

"Tsukiyo?" Darkness called out to me in concern.

"My legs..they won't move…" I said while trying my hardest to walk with Darkness.

Along with my legs not wanting to move, my hands were trembling, and my heartbeat was deafening to the point of almost not being able to hear.

It's been a while since I've felt this much fear and exhaustion…

While I was off in my own world, Darkness put my arm over her shoulder, helped me get off the ground, and helped me walk in the direction Aqua and Co. ran off.

"Darkness…" I said while we walked.

"I made a promise to you." She said while looking forward, "I won't let you face your problems alone anymore. You've got my back as long as I have yours, right?" she said in confidence.

"Learn to rely on me sometimes. I...wanna be there for you…" She continued while blushing.

"But your arm…" I said out of concern.

"Don't worry, the pain doesn't bother me as much as it should. Besides, Once we catch up to Aqua I can get my arm healed up and make it like nothing ever happened." Darkness said in full confidence, "Trust me, ok?"

Her words rang deeply in my head, and she's right.

Maybe I should trust her more. Darkness isn't the type of person to go back on her word, even if her life depended on it.

"Yeah, I will. Thanks Dark-, Lalatina." I said to her.

She smiled brightly as we continued to walk the rest of the way up the mountain, with Wiz following closely behind us, up to the main source of the Hot Springs only to see Kazuma, Aqua, and Megumin stopped dead in their tracks, in front of what looks like a body.

We came up from behind them and saw what they saw, and boy did the word massacre feel like an understatement and a half to describe the body's condition.

It was some kind of animal that had it's upper body completely torn off and eviscerated.

"It's a Rookie Killer…" Megumin said softly

"Rookie Killer?" I asked, "You mean the same saber tooth looking lion that snacked on my body back when Dust was with us?"

Megumin nodded her head, "But what happened to it?" she asked.

A light glow in my demon arm shone as Vergil came out and took a closer look at the animal.

He inspected it for a while, while mumbling to himself, "Clean cuts….crushed bones….and claw marks?"

"Claw Marks? You mean another animal did this?" Kazuma spoke up, "Oh Hell no! Aqua we need to leave if another animal, and I mean a much bigger and deadlier animal did this! We're not ready for this type of fight!" He said as he panicked.

Aqua, still being as stubborn as ever, refused "We're not going back down until we clean the source of the poisoned Hot Springs! It's alright if you die, I'll just revive you later! It's no big deal…"

"No! It is a big deal! I've already died a couple of times from this teams dumb decisions! If I die one more time from this stupid nonsense I'm gonna reincarnate back to Japan! You guys can handle this by yourself!" Kazuma said as he went full bitch mode.

"Japan? Why does that sound familiar?" Darkness asked herself, but everyone was too focused on Kazuma's bullshit to even hear it.

"Everyone shut up." Vergil said as he stood up from kneeling over the body, "Something feels off. Whatever killed this sabertooth wasn't an animal. It's not possible for an animal to switch from clean cuts to claw marks in an instant."

"This might be the work of a demon…" Vergil said as he looked around the mountain around us, "...a Demon I might know…"

"Hmmm, I get it." Kazuma said as if he understood the entire plot of Minecraft, "So what you're saying is, is that we should head down before any of us get too hurt. Right! I understand! Let's go back down!"

Aqua grabbed the back of Kazuma's shirt collar to prevent him from running away and abandoning us, "Jeez, Stop being such a coward! You've got a goddess on your side who can revive you, Why are you so scared!?"

"Because it's always like this!" Kazuma shouted, but Aqua still ignored him while trying to drag him deeper up the mountain.

"Don't worry Kazuma…" Megumin said in a cheerful voice, "If something really does try to kill us I can blow it up!"

"To be honest, you saying that scares me even more. Depending on how close that monster gets I'll probably get caught in the blast…" Kazuma said as he started losing hope on his life.

Before we would go deeper into the mountain, I grabbed Aqua's wrist and dragged her back, "Hold on. You're not going up there until you heal Darkness' arm!" I said.

Aqua had this slight look of realization before she went to heal her, "Oh yeah, you're right. Sorry, I forgot the first time!" She tried to say innocently.

I really wanted to smack Aqua for being Aqua but because she's gonna heal Darkness I can't really do anything…

...yet.

After Darkness finally got healed and Vergil returned back in my arm, we resumed making our way to the source of the Hot Springs.

I was finally able to walk normally as we went up the mountain, but I went at a pace that was slower than the rest.

"Come on Tsukiyo!" Kazuma complained, "If I get jumped by a monster, it's basically up to you to kill it!"

"Right…" I said back. I'm still just as scared as before, but I can't keep being a coward forever...

As we continued to make our way up the mountain, we've encountered those bug demons once again as they came at us in groups of 6 or 8.

Just like before I relatively took them out quickly without it going on a massive murder spree like before.

It still shocks me with what Vergil told me back when I trained with him…

...it really does get easier with each encounter.

It took around half an hour to reach the top of the mountain that would be considered the Source of the Hot Spring's water.

While we were at the source of the Hot Springs what caught our attention the most the moment we got here is the fact that all the pools of water that surrounded the area was a deep purple.

The source of the Hot Springs really was poisoned and whoever did this really didn't bother making it subtle at all, they really wanted the Axis Cult gone.

Which, I could understand to an extent.

Aqua looked in horror as she started to panic and run towards the nearest pool of water, stuck her hand in it, and started casting 'Purification' continuously.

"What the hell!? Aqua are you crazy?!" Kazuma shouted as he saw her hand start to steam up.

"I can't let go right now! Ow! It burns!" Aqua said as she started to cry from the pain, "I have to save my people at all cost! I don't care if I lose a hand!"

Kazuma and Wiz went into full panic as they tried using some Ice magic to lesson the burns happening on Aqua's hand.

In a matter of 5-10 minutes, the deep purple water slowly started becoming transparent like normal water.

Aqua took her hand out of the now purified water as she started to heal it.

"This is only one puddle and it's already taken this long to purify it. I don't know how long they'll be able to use the Springs…" Aqua said in a depressed tone.

"Aqua, let's head to the source of the water first. If we can get the bigger pool first, it should be easier to get the smaller ones later, ok?" Wiz said trying to reassure her.

Aqua wiped some of her tears away as she understood what Wiz was saying. She stood up and pointed at a sign ahead of us, "It looks like the main source of the Hot Springs are just ahead, let's hurry."

As we headed towards the main Source of the Hot Springs, I noticed that there were more pipes appearing the closer we got the source. Some of the pipes look like they were rusting bad, while others were seeping dark purple goo from the crevices,

It didn't help that even the air felt like it was getting really polluted since It started getting harder to breath.

We finally got to what looks like the main source of the Hot Springs due to all the pipes leading into one massive pool of what looks to be a lightish purple water.

Alongside the lightish purple water, was what looked like a figure standing right next to it with its hand in.

"Hey is that…" Wiz squinted her eyes as she tried to make out the figure.

"Hey! Are you the one who's poisoning the Springs!?" Aqua said all angrily.

The figure seemed to have been startled, it took its hand out of the water and turned towards us, "H-hey! No one besides the Manager is allowed back here, go back to Town!" He said angrily.

"Nice try! We're not gonna be fooled by something simple like that!" Aqua claimed proudly, "I've already met the Manager of the Hot Springs, he's an old man that lives on the top floor of the Inn!"

Right, and if this guy somehow manages to escape us, you've officially fucked over the manager.

Nice one.

The man started to get closer to us as he had a glare on, "I'm gonna tell you one more time, Please leave the prem-" He seemed to have stopped saying what be was about to say and take a closer look at us.

"Hey...aren't you…" The man said as it looked like he was staring at me.

"Hans!" Wiz said happily as she called out to the man.

At this point, the man looked completely surprised as he started to step back a bit and deny his identity, "W-what? Who're you talking about? My name is...Jeff!"

Even in this shitty fantasy world, I can't escape this meme…

Wiz then nonchalantly went up to the man and started talking to him as if he were some longtime friend, "Hans! Hans it's me Wiz! We've seen each other multiple times back at the Demon General's Castle! It may have been at least 140 years but I don't think I've changed that much!"

140 …?

Sure….whatever…

"I'm sorry, but you must be mistaking me for someone else. M-my name is Jeff Calagos, I'm the manager of the Hot Springs. P-please leave, this is an unauthorized area for normal civilians. It's Dangerous…" The man said while trying to make up some kind of accent.

So this guy was the power signature Vergil was reading…

My hand slowly reached for the grip of my Sword as Wiz continued to distract him.

"Why would this be dangerous for us? You're natural attribute is slime-" Wiz asked him while still being clueless, but Hans cut her off and tried to escape the situation, "OH MY! Look at the time! I apologise dear customers, but it looks like I'm gonna have to leave for now!"

Hans tried to leave by stepping away from Wiz and towards a random direction in the forest, but got blocked by Aqua, Megumin, and Darkne-

Wait Darkness?!

"Where do you think you're going Hans!?" Aqua said to intimidate him.

"Yeah Hans, where are you going?!" Megumin chimed in.

"You're not getting past us Hans!" Darkness declared

Darkness doesn't have her Armour or Broadsword, what the hell does she thinks she's doing?!

Hans seemed to have exploded from anger as he turned around and started getting angry at everyone, "Ok, Ok! Enough with the Hans! I get it! What the hell are you doing here Wiz! Aren't you supposed to be running some shitty shop in the beginner town?! I don't have any time to waste with you!"

That man...he's the same one from the bath...

Wiz started to pout as she got angry at Hans, "Well excuse me for wanting to Catch up on old times! Are you Working right now?"

"Yes! Obviously! If I wasn't here to work, then why would I be in this shithole of a city to begin with?!" He said as he continued to argue.

"O-oh…" Wiz started to look a bit down knowing that she dun goofed and exposed her demon buddy.

You know, for a 150 year old lich, Wiz really isn't….the brightest…

...still smarter than Aqua though, I know for a fact that she can't get negative IQ points…

Hans started to so some breathing techniques before he calmed himself down, "So, now that my identities been exposed, What're you gonna do now? Take me down?" He said in a condescending tone.

"Hell yeah we are! You already sealed your own fate the moment you stepped foot in this sacred land of the Axis-" "Nope."

Aqua got her speech cut off by Wiz as she blatantly rejected the fight offer Hans gave her.

"Really? Why is that?" Hans questioned her.

"Well...because Hans is my friend, I don't like fighting with my friends so...Can't we talk through this?" Wiz said innocently as she is being genuine.

Wiz, this isn't Undertale. You won't be able to get through every fight by talking.

If that was the case then the only people who'd reincarnate in this world would be Nuns, Psychiatrists, and Hardcore Western Catholics.

Even then, I'd still think that there'd be fights.

Hans chuckled to himself as he probably ignored Wiz's request, "Oh Wiz, still the same old person…What a hypocrite…" he said sourly.

"Back when you were an Arch Wizard, you slaughtered every demon or demon-related enemy that approached you, and now you want to talk things out? Just because you turned into a Lich?" Hans said in a cold attitude, "You're an even bigger idiot than I thought."

"Rude!" Wiz said as she pouted even more.

"Umm excuse me." Kazuma called out.

"I'm sorry that I have to break up you're little reunion, but I'm here to let you know that we've already defeated you're buddies Beldia and Vanir. Oh and we also Defeated the destroyer that almost tried to mow down our town." Kazuma stated with everyone's attention on him.

Ok...what's he trying to prove?

"You?! Someone that defeated Vanir and Beldia?! Someone with trash equipment?!" Hans said in disbelief. I'm with you Hans, as much as I want to deny all that, it really did happen.

"Looks can be deceiving, Mr. Hans." Kazuma said as I started to hear some snark in his words.

"Hah! Nice try acting tough. If it was the halfling that said that, then I'd get concerned, you're bluff isn't convincing enough." Hans said as he singled me out.

"Of course. It's always the halfling that gets the attention," Kazuma said as his ego started to reappear, "I'm gonna give you a choice Mr. Hans: You can either A; Surrender yourself and not get rekt, or B; Get rekt. What'll it be?"

"K-Kazuma! What're you doing?!" Wiz said in a cautious tone, "Do you understand how-"

Kazuma cut her off as he placed his palm over the grip of his racist sounding Katana, "Oh don't worry Wiz. I know exactly what I'm talking about."

Hans began to laugh loudly as he heard what Kazuma said, "Oh what an interesting person you are…"

He then began to crack his neck and arms as he started to get into a battle stance, "Ok, kiddo. Let's play."

Kazuma then drew his sword and got into a battle stance of his own, "Let's do this Partner…" He said as he talked to Hans.

Kazuma you're probably gonna die and I'm probably gonna give you shit for it for a long time.

"Not a lot of people start battles with me to begin with because of my title, It's actually refreshing to be approached and challenged." Hans said as the air around him started to get muggy.

"I, Hans, of the Deadly poison slime, A Demon King Army boss, will now have the pleasure of reducing your body to nothing!" He claimed loudly.

Visible fear began to appear on Kazuma's face as he finally understood what he just did.

"Kazuma!" Wiz shouted at him, "Hans is a very powerful Demon Boss, magic won't work so please be careful!"

"W-wait…" Kazuma said as his stance began to falter.

I grabbed Darkness' wrist as she started to get closer to me and pulled her behind me, "I'm not gonna let you get hurt by a Demon Boss. Get close to the treeline and don't come out." I said as I gripped my Sword tightly.

"No way!" Darkness said as she took the Red Queen from my hand, "If we're taking out a boss, we're doing it together!"

While I would've loved to argue with her why it was a bad idea to do so, we didn't have the luxury of time to do so.

I grabbed my revolver and pulled it out, "Stay close and don't do anything rash okay?" I said to her.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine." Darkness said as she had some kind of determination in her eyes.

"If it's a slime we're dealing with, I'll have more than enough fun with it!" She said as she started to pant.

"Alright adventurers, come! Let's have some fun!" Hans said as his muscles started to pulsate a bright purple.

Everyone was at the ready to work as a team and take down this Demon Boss…

...well everyone but Kazuma.

And I say this because not only did he not anticipate this, but he also had the balls to run away from us…

Without any hesitation, Kazuma re-sheathed his sword and just bolted the opposite direction of us, to be honest, if we were back in Japan, I'm pretty sure he'd be able to make the track team for Short distance runners…

After seeing our 'Fearless' leader turn tail and run away, Aqua, Megumin, and Wiz went after him.

"K-Kazuma?!" "Kazuma! What are you doing?!" "Kazuma!" they called out as they went after him.

"Did..did he really…?" Hans began to question what just happened as he probably witnessed a once in a lifetime disappointment.

"Yep...he did…" I said sort of consoling him… "I'm sorry about him..."

Hans snapped out of his disappointment as he turned towards me and Darkness, "R-right, well...I didn't expect much out of him anyways!" He proclaimed proudly, yup and neither did I to be honest.

"What I'm interested in, is you two…" He said as he glared at us.

"A Demon and Crusader working together...what a sight…" Hans said as if he was talking down to us.

"Not the first time I've heard that, but Yeah, what of it?" I asked him.

"Are you really not interested in joining our efforts to take over the world?" He asked me

"Nah, not really. Something tells me that you guys aren't gonna get close to your goal while adventurers like us are around." I said while I started to aim my revolver at him.

Even if this is a fantasy world, couldn't they be a little bit more creative?

"Adventurers like you huh?" Hans said as he got skeptical, "Well something tells me that people like you are very far and few, I mean a Demon and an Axis Devotee? Naw, not happening."

"Eris-Devotee, for your information." Darkness said as she corrected him.

"Oh well, that's much different. At least you got someone sane to die with." Hans said as he joked around.

I really wish that Darkness was sane to begin with though…

"Right then, Shall we get started Demon?" Hans asked as he flicked his wrist at us and launched a couple of slimeballs at us.

I shot three of them that were heading towards us while Darkness tried slashing at them, only to miss her slices.

While this definitely would've made me facepalm and ask why she's like this, the knockback of the Red Queen made the air around it deflect the slime balls back to Hans.

"Oh?" Hans said as he examined our fighting style, "A Ranger and a heavy Swordsman? Not bad. But I want to see what you're fully capable of."

Hans shape shifted both of his arms into sharp needles as he came rushing towards us.

Before he could get close to us, Darkness stood in front of me and readied her stance to try and deflect any oncoming blows.

Hans leaped into the air as he tried to go for an overhead stab with his right arm. While Darkness did predict where he was about to strike, the moment his needle arm came into contact with the Red Queen, his arm liquidated as he restricted the blades movement.

He tried going for a lower jab with his other arm only for me to grab it with the demon arm and stop him.

It seems like he also anticipated this and liquidated his other arm, covering my entire demon arm in his slime.

What Hans didn't know was that he isn't the only one who can drain and absorb.

I used my drain ability to try and steal some of Hans' energy from his other arm, but while I did steal some of his energy, it also melted off some of the slime that was covering my arm.

I suddenly started to hear a faint rumbling from the Red Queen as some sparks started to fly from the base of the sword.

Darkness was unknowingly revving it up, as she tried to put some pressure into the Sword Itself.

I grabbed the Handle of the Sword and started to Rev the sword with her as the sword went into Drive 1.

The slime that was covering the Sword was starting to bubble and steam as the Sword got hot.

Hans backed up from us and started to wave his hands behind him trying to cool them down.

"That's some neat gimmick you got there. Heat and energy draining…Interesting…" He said as he started to enjoy this.

I looked at my Demon arm as It still had some slime on it, I drained it away making it disappear and making my arm glow dark blue (Charge shot lv.2)

"You still plan on Fighting?" I asked him

He looked at me differently as he looked completely confident, "It's natural order kid. One of us has to die before this fight can end. Unless you're just like that damn woman and want to talk it out?" Hans said as he started to give me a glare.

"If you don't plan on giving up then neither will we. But, I don't plan on killing you." I said as I got my revolver ready, Darkness stood right next to me as she also got ready.

He sighed deeply as he heard my response, "If you're not willing to kill me then you've already lost this fight." He cracked his hands before getting back into his stance, "Let's See how long you can stall then!"

"If he goes for another overhead, make sure to swing downwards. Trust me on this." I whispered to her, she nodded her head.

"Hey, what're you whispering about, let me come closer!" Hans said as his whole body liquidated and shapeshifted into a puddle.

Since it was still dark out and the mountain didn't have much lighting around it aside from the water, we weren't able to pinpoint where Hans would come out of.

Me and Darkness were back to back as we looked around to see where he'd come out of.

"Surprise!" Hans said as he his body formed in between us and separated us.

He made sure to launch as slime ball towards my demon arm pinning it down to the ground.

"Shit! Darkness watch out!" I shouted as I tried to warn her. I used my energy drain to drain the slime, but since the slimeball was much bigger than last time, it took a while to drain it.

Darkness was having a one on one battle with Hans as she deflected the strikes that was coming from Hans.

While I could've pulled out my revolver to shoot him in the back, I didn't want to risk hitting Darkness with a now max level charge shot.

~ ~ ~ ~

Could use a hand here!

~ ~ ~ ~

While I didn't get a response from Vergil, I did get some form of help from him as he summoned multiple blue swords around Darkness protecting her from all around. The sword spun around her a quick pace making it difficult to find an opening to strike from.

Hans backed up a bit as he started to get a bit more cautious around Darkness.

With his back turned towards me, I was able to make a sneak attack by using my arm to snatch him from behind and choke slam him to the ground.

Hans turned back into puddle form to get some distance from us, he was lightly panting from exhaustion, "Well then, I didn't expect to get back up into a corner…" He said while wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"I can do this all night you know." I said to him as he continued to pant.

"Ya, I know. That's why I'm gonna get serious now." Hans said as he turned back into his puddle form and started to rush towards me.

I pulled out my revolver and aimed at him and was just about to shoot him when he was about to pop up, but he ignored me as he went straight past me.

I turned around instantly as he was now rushing towards Darkness.

"Darkness watch out!" I shouted.

Darkness saw Hans coming for her and tried to swing downwards to the ground hoping he'd get knocked back, but Hans split his slime body in two.

The Red Queen fell onto the ground in a loud clang as one of Hans' bodies got past Vergil's Sword defence and held Darkness hostage, while the other body faced towards me.

"Hey! Let her go!" I shouted angrily.

"Hmmm. And if I say no?" Hans teased as he started to engulf Darkness' entire body in slime, while Darkness struggled to break away from it.

I aimed my revolver at the body that was holding Darkness hostage, but as he saw me aim at him, he put Darkness' struggling body in front of him to protect himself, "Whoa there, there's no need for friendly fire." He said smugly.

I glared at him angrily as I tried to figure out a way to get her out.

"You know, I usually don't like taking hostages, but this is a special case." He said as his other double began to rush me.

I shot at the body double with my max power shot and saw him explode, only to see him piece himself together.

"Oh, so that's what it did." Hans said as he continued to make Darkness struggle, "You know, if that was my actual body, that would've done some damage, too bad it ain't though."

His body began to rush me once again, but this time much faster.

It started to get close enough where it was throwing fast punches and kicks at me, and each time I tried to use the Devil Bringer, it's body would liquidate and dodge it.

"Better Hurry up kiddo, your girlfriends gonna drown in no time!" Hans said as he continued to watch her struggle, "And no cheap tricks this time. I'm already being generous enough to let her drown, if I wanted, I could instantly evaporate her in the snap of a finger."

I was dodging almost every punch/kick Hans' double was throwing at me, and wasn't getting anywhere close to saving Darkness.

"Oh boy, you better hurry! She's starting to lose consciousness!" Hans teased.

As I looked over there, It was true, Darkness' movements were starting to get slower and slower.

Since I got too distracted from Darkness, I got kicked in the gut as it sent me flying over towards the same wall Hans escaped to earlier.

The Body double stretched its arms at me as it choked me fiercely and with a smug look on its face, "It's a real shame that you got this far all for nothing, but don't worry, I'll make sure no one knows what happens"

The body double started to choke me even stronger than before, to the point of me feeling like my windpipe was being crushed.

My vision slowly darkened as I was just about to lose consciousness until I heard a magic chant.


	53. A Reason to Kill (Vol 4 End)

"Sacred Turn Undead!" someone shouted from behind Hans.

A large magic circle surrounded the area the real Hans and Darkness was as it shone brightly.

Hans let Darkness go as he tried to escape the attack.

"Snipe! Snipe! Snipe! Snipe!" another voice shouted as multiple arrows started to hit the body doubles arms that were choking me.

"Hey Tsukiyo!" the voice shouted, "Now's not the time to be acting so weak, that's my job!"

I looked up from where I was and saw Kazuma, Aqua, and Megumin finally back from wherever they went.

While Hans was still distracted from the Magic rune, she ran towards the Main source of the Hot Springs to purify it, "You guys keep him busy! If I can purify this right now, it should be able to flush out the entire system!" Aqua shouted, she then proceeded to stick in hand in the poisoned water and groan in pain as she casted purification over and over again.

"Hey! Don't think I'm not gonna stop you erasing all my hard work!" Hans said as he and his body double merged back into one and went after Aqua.

"Snipe!" Kazuma said as he began to cut off Hans' route towards Aqua.

"Sorry Hans, I'm gonna make this any easier for you!" Kazuma shouted as he continued to use 'Snipe' and break Hans away from Aqua.

Megumin ran up to the limp and slimy body of Darkness, "Guys! She not moving!" she said while panicking.

Without any care for the pain searing through my body, I ran as fast as I could to Darkness hoping that, that wasn't the case.

I lifted Darkness' head from the ground as I started hitting her cheek with my hand hoping get her conscious again. No reaction, come on don't die on me after boasting your defense to me and the party!

I turned her head to the side and checked her pulse, there was a pulse there thankfully, but damn was it faint.

Megumin started to Panic as she continued to watch on the sidelines and not be able to do anything, "Tsukiyo what should we do, she's not moving!"

Hans seemed to have overheard us, "What Did she really pass on that easily? I was going easy on her!" He said smugly, "But hey, if you really want to join her, then Allow Me!" he said as he began to rush me once again.

" 'Cursed Crystal Prison' " Wiz said in a low voice stopping Hans dead in his tracks.

Within seconds of Wiz chanting her spell, the entire bottom half of Hans' body was completely frozen.

"What the…?! W-wiz…" Hans said as he tried to break out of the ice.

"I've kept my peace when you've killed Adventurers, I've stayed silent when you wiped out entire Villages, I've even stayed quiet when you always did things you're way because it was 'your job.'" Wiz said in a cold tone as the atmosphere around her started to get very tense and suffocating, "But this! Hurting my friends! Now you've gone too far!"

"Hey now! Do you really want to do this!? You know what I'm capable of!" Hans said as he started to get intimidated by Wiz.

"Even So! I'm not gonna stay quiet while you do this!" Wiz said as she formed multiple shards of crystals while aiming it at him.

I turned towards Megumin as she continued to panic, "Do you know CPR?" I asked her.

She shook her head in disappointment as she continued to panic. I grabbed her hands and put one over the other and made them tighten up. I then moved her hand over to where Darkness' heart would be and showed her how to properly pump the heart.

"Stay calm and count to 60, each second will have one pump, nothing more, nothing less. After 60 seconds wait 5 seconds before doing it again." I told her as I got my Red Queen and headed to where Wiz was.

"W-where are you going?" She asked.

"I've got a score to settle with that Son of a Bitch!" I said angrily as I join Wiz in taking Hans down.

Hans broke free from his frozen bottom half and regrew his legs, he started to get really pissed at Wiz as he started to emit a deep red sludge from his body.

"So you really want to go huh?! A two on one!? Fine then! Let's do this!" Hans shouted as he transformed his hands into blades but with serrated edges oozing out toxins.

He charged straight at us as he swung his arm throwing his toxins at us. I was just about ready to dodge his Toxins and swing at him only to find arrows getting shot at him in the air, "I've got your back Tsukiyo, Let's get this guy!" Kazuma shouted as he nocked another arrow.

"Huh? A three on one now? Can you really call this fair now?" Hans said as he tried to get in our heads, "If you're gonna be honourable you should at least-" I cut off Hans speech as I shot off his left hand.

He regrew it back in an instant and got pissed, "You know it's rude to interrupt someone when they're talking. Should I teach you some Manners?"

"Shut up…" I said while seething anger.

"Huh? What's wrong kiddo?" Hans said as he teased me, "Are you finally gonna take me seriously now that I've killed your girlfriend?"

"Yeah...I'll take you seriously…" I said as I gripped the Red Queen tightly, "I'll make sure to cut you down to the point of obliteration!"

I maxed out my sword rev to level 3 as I prepared to take down Hans.

"So you're gonna kill me then?" He asked in an unimpressed attitude.

"If it means saving more people from getting poisoned by then I'll butcher you non-stop until insanity!" I said as I rushed him with killing intent.

"You've already killed yourself the moment you took a step forward." Hans said as he as about to counter whatever I was about to throw at him.

" 'Ice Sickle' " Wiz shouted as she summoned an Ice pillar with sharp edges right in front of him.

Hans jumped back to avoid the Ice Pillar only to realise that I was also in the air and was about to skewer him down to the earth.

I stabbed Hans dead center in his stomach as I stabbed him to the ground (Double Down). The moment the Red Queen impacted the ground, it made a large radius of deep red fire scorching the ground around us.

Hans turned into a puddle as he escaped the ground and tried to backstab me only to have an arrow hit his shoulder making his miss his mark. While I did get stabbed in my back shoulder, I used the Blue Rose to fire behind me and hit him on his shoulder.

Hans tried to back up once again as I blew off his shoulder.

" 'Ice Barrier' "Wiz chanted as she summoned a large wall of ice to block Hans' retreat.

It was my turn to rush him as I grabbed the Red Queen and used it weight as momentum to push forward while spinning (Ex Streak.)

The Ice wall broke in a large shatter as Hans was thrown back while getting knocked into the ground, he split himself into two again as he used both body doubles to overtake me.

" 'Ice Vortex' "Wiz chanted as she summoned a Vortex of Ice and Snow around me making it difficult for Hans to get close.

While this Ice Vortex lasted, Kazuma started going machine gun mode and shoot arrows non-stop at both Hans and his body doubles.

As the storm died down and started to get less intense, I tried to go for another rush towards him (Ex. Streak)

This was a pretty risky move on my end since Hans tried to shoot some poison slime at me from both of his bodies. If I wasn't doing an Ex Streak move I probably would've been burned, poisoned or been in an even worse situation.

But since I was in a Streak Ex. 3, the amount of heat coming from the Red Queen basically evaporated the slime as I was spun around from the momentum of the blade.

" 'Cursed Crystal Prison' "WIz chanted as both of the slime bodies' lower half became frozen, giving me a Major advantage.

Surprisingly, while both of the bodies' lower half was frozen, only one of them struggled to tear himself away from his lower half, while the other one was slumped over.

I ran towards the struggling body as I gripped the Red Queen tightly adapted into the air.

I revved the Red Queen beyond its limits as I used both of my hand to try and split him in half.

With Deep red flames coming out of the sides of the blade, this would've been the killing blow if this was any other monster that was caught in Wiz's Ice Spell…

...but since this was a slime I was dealing with, of course Hans would have some kind of Trick up his sleeve.

The momentum and sheer power of the Red Queen was rapidly pushing me down to the earth as I slammed the blade powerfully straight into Hans.

While I did feel some kind of impact from my Blade to his body, I seemed to have been stopped midway.

As the flames from the Red Queen dispersed and cleared my vision, what I saw baffled me since I basically put 150% of my power, along with a level 3 Ex., into this attack only to have Hans block the Red Queen with both of his hands.

I tried to pull out the Red Queen to make some kind of tactical retreat, only to find out that it's lodged stuck.

Hans turned one of his Hands into a reinforced fist as he decked me straight in the face, sending me flying towards Wiz and Megumin.

"To think that a trashy party and a worthless Lich would force me to bring out my true form…" Hans said as he snapped the Red Queen in two and started to absorb it.

What made things even worse was the fact that Hans started to turn deep purple as his body started to deform and expand massively.

In a matter of seconds, Hans went from being a solid 5'8", to becoming a literal slime and being as tall as our Mansion.

"You know what?! I couldn't care less about the Demon Lords order to make us not engage the Beginner Town! I'll eviscerate you six right here, right now! And when I'm done, that Town is next!" Hans said as he began to shoot off slime balls in every direction possible.

It was already difficult enough to dodge them since the balls of slime where the size of a beach ball, but since Hans is just spazzing out and sending them in every direction, I couldn't really get a read off him.

"Um….Tsukiyo! Do we have a plan?! I'm already out of arrows and Hans is throwing a tantrum!" Kazuma shouted as he began to dodge the slime balls with me.

"I'm not throwing a Tantrum! This is my Ultimate move! 'Slime Annihilation!' " Hans shouted at us as he continued to fling balls at us. (kek)

"Shut up! You're basically throwing a Tantrum!" Kazuma shouted back.

" 'Ice Barrier' " Wiz chanted as she summoned a large Ice wall in front of us and Aqua.

"Ok! What do we do?! Cause if we got out there, we're gonna die!" Kazuma said as he went into full panic mode again.

I tried to think fast on what to do about Hans, and I had to hurry since the slime balls are already eating away at a past pace.

Wiz brought up a plan, "I got an idea!" she said seriously.

"I need two people to distract him from me and Megumin." She started out.

"I don't like this plan." Kazuma said as he could already tell what was about to come next.

"We only have this once chance for Megumin to let off her explosion! I need time to prepare a Crystal Prison big enough to stop him!" Wiz said as she tried to argue with Kazuma.

"But can't we do this..!" Kazuma stopped what he was about to say as he had his sleeve tugged on.

He looked back and saw Megumin with an angry expression, "Kazuma, Please let me do this! I want to make sure people like Hans don't hurt anyone anymore!" She looked determined to let off her explosion spell at Hans no matter what.

Kazuma fell on his knees and screamed in anger as he began to furiously scratch his head. He did this for a few minutes before stopping, "Alright let's do this!" He said in a determined voice.

The Ice barrier was almost completely melted through as both me and Kazuma got ready for the signal.

By the time The Ice Barrier was completely melted, me and Kazuma sprinted towards Hans with me on his right and Kazuma on his left.

I gave Kazuma my Blue Rose to shoot at Hans while turned on my Devil Trigger and sent small spectral daggers at him.

Wiz began to charge up her mana, while Megumin began to prepare her spell.

"Ancestors before me! My name is Megumin! I bestow my staff and bow as I plead to gather your energy! Just this once! Allow me to borrow your power and exact Judgement on those who wrong and harm my comrades!" Megumin chanted as she prepared her spell.

While I was sending my daggers at Hans, he didn't seem to be affected by the daggers and the gunshots. He was ignoring me and Kazuma as he headed straight for Wiz and Megumin.

"Hey Hans!" I said as I summoned the Yamato and unsheathed it, "Why are you ignoring me?! Too scared to fight a guy who just kicked your ass!" I said as I rushed at him and tried to do a dimensional slash like Vergil would do, only to have a couple of slashes appear and do very little damage.

But it seems like I was able to get his attention since he started to machine gun fire two beams of slime balls at me nonstop.

I gripped the Yamato in my demon arm as I swung it from side to side and up and down rapidly to slice each and every slime ball coming my way.

As of right now, I was buying more time for Wiz and Megumin to charge up for the finisher. Kazuma, being the ranged guy he was, was using his 'Snipe' skill to shoot Hans but the bullets did very little as all it did just lodge itself in the gel and stay there.

Hans increased his slime ball fire from 2 beams to 4, and within each second of me slicing each individual slime ball, I was getting more and more tired. Hans seemed to have noticed me slowing down, because he started launching the slime balls in a more concentrated beam aiming for my head.

"What's wrong Boy?!" He said as his slime balls started to push me back more towards the center of the mountain and away from the others, "Getting tired from something like this?! Don't make me laugh!"

"Tsukiyo!" Wiz called out signalling me that her spell was ready.

As if it was on cue, Vergil summoned a spectral sword and sent it flying, landing near Wiz. The moment the sword hit the ground, I was instantly warped over there and started to focus all of my Demonic energy into the Yamato as I got into a Samurai stance that Vergil would usually do.

"Hey Hans!" Me and Wiz shouted as we got ready to unleash our attack.

"Don't fuck with me!" We both shouted as I unleashed what Vergil would call a Judgement Cut to slice the giant slime into multiple pieces while Wiz unleashed her Expanded Crystal Prison.

"Megumin!" Kazuma shouted as he began to run to us since he was in the line of fire.

"Explosion!" Megumin shouted as the magic runes that appeared above the mountain began to shine brightly and emit an intense atmosphere.

"GODDAMMIT!" Kazuma shouted as the explosion caught up with him.

Megumin's explosion almost engulfed there mountain as Hans' slime body evaporated along with half of Kazuma sadly.

By the time the smoke cleared, there was no sign of Hans or any kind of life that was just ahead of us.

As hard as it is to believe, this party defeated their 3rd Demon Boss General.

Now that that was over with, I had to get to Darkness ASAP.

I ran over to where Darkness' body was and saw that she was still unconscious.

I checked her pulse once again, and saw that her pulse was much fainter this time.

I started doing CPR on her immediately as I told Megumin to keep her head still. I couldn't rely on Aqua this time since she's still not done purifying the water.

I started pumping Darkness' heart with my hands as I used a bit more forced than Megumin. I did this for 3 solid minutes before giving mouth to mouth.

Obviously, everyone was shocked but I couldn't care less since I was trying to save a life here.

I continued to pump her, Come on, come on!

I still continued.

Don't Die dammit!

I gave her mouth to mouth once again.

"Tsukiyo…" Megumin said as she started to tear up.

I still continued to pump her chest but with more force.

Come on Dammit!

"Tsukiyo I think…" Kazum tried to get me to stop but I just shoved him out of the way

"Hell no! I'm not done, not yet!" I said desperately trying to bring Darkness back.

I pumped her heart more violently and roughly as I started to lose myself.

"Come on Dammit! Didn't you say you'd have my back!?" I shouted as I started to have tears well up in my eyes.

"Tsukiyo, that's enough!" Megumin said as she started to cry.

I didn't stop though, I kept trying no matter what.

I was just about to give Darkness mouth to mouth again if it was the for the fact that Darkness was starting to puke out both the slime and water that was in her system.

She started to regain her consciousness as she tried to sit up with the help of Wiz, "Tsukiyo….guys…?"

Megumin went up to Darkness and hugged her tightly.

I was there in shock and in major relief as I somehow managed to save Darkness from dying..

I really did it…

I really did….

it…

I rested my head on Darkness shoulder as I cried silently yet violently.

Darkness also started to cry as she placed her hand on my head and hugged me tightly.

A couple of days layer after the incident with Hans, Darkness and the others stayed in the Inn to make sure Darkness and Kazuma were treated up to 100%.

The reason why I say Darkness and the others, and not We is because the town still wants to crucify me for destroying their statue.

I was told that Kazuma and the others told the Axis cultist that there was a Demon boss here and that I sacrificed myself to kill it and prevent it from harming them.

Their reaction?

The Axis cultist threw a big party when they heard this. They said it was the easiest 'Two birds with one stone' deal on history.

Since I couldn't go back to town to rest up for the next couple days, I was forced to camp out in the mountain while Darkness or Wiz brought me food.

Needless to say, because of this experience, I don't think I'm gonna go camping in the forest anytime soon.

Oh yeah, The Axis cultist also kicked Aqua out from the Hot Springs to never come back.

Why?

Apparently while me and Wiz were fighting Hanz, She was constantly on edge and overdoing her purification to the point of turning all Hot Spring water into Purified Water.

To be honest, that is the most ironic thing I've seen all my life.

A Goddess saves her people from being poisoned and harmed by a slime demon only to get kicked out of your own town.

Damn that must've been a huge blow to her faith!

On the day that we were scheduled to go back to Axel, Since I was proclaimed dead, I was forced to hide myself inside one of the luggage carriers.

After hiding for what seems like hours while sweating my ass off in this desert, I was finally able to get out and join my team in the same carriage we came here from.

I sighed as I fell back on the seat, "Ughhhh….why couldn't there be an easier way to smuggle me inside the carriage?"

"Sorry about that Tsukiyo, this was the only way I knew to sneak people away from place to place." Wiz said as she apologised to me.

"Well...if worse came to worse, I could've used my demon sword to summon a portal and how that I'd be near Axel, but I don't feel like pushing my nonexistent luck…" I said as I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

"Pssh, you say you don't have luck...Did you just forget that I just got killed by a friendly fire incident?!" Kazuma complained, "You have some kind of luck, but me? Oh no! I have the worst luck!"

"Can't we just grateful that no one important died in that fight?" Megumin asked as she started to pet chomusuke.

"Was my death not important?!" Kazuma angrily shouted.

"Don't worry Kazuma, you're important to us. So much so that we'd be more than happy to revive you if you died again!" I said in a fake innocent voice.

"I wanna go back to Japan…" Kazuma groaned.

Darkness, oddly enough, stayed silent for most of the time I tried talking to her in these last couple of days, including right now.

"Something wrong?" I asked her, she wanted to say something but the moment she tried she started to blush brightly and look away.

"...don't…..member…?" she mumbled.

"Speak up." I said to her as I leaned in closer.

"I think she's still embarrassed from the time you kissed her multiple times." Megumin said nonchalantly.

Darkness' face along with mine blew up bright red when she told us that.

"It's CPR! That's a normal thing to do when someone drowned!" I said while trying to explain my side of the story, "Kazuma, you know about it too! Explain to them, that I'm right!"

Kazuma looked at me with a weird expression as he turned his head in confusion, "What's CPR?"

Kazuma you Son of a Bitch….

"W-well aside from what Tsukiyo did, it did Save Darkness' life. So I guess it isn't that strange to do…" Wiz commented as even she started to blush a bit.

"But I have to ask Tsukiyo…" Kazuma as he leaned in closer to me, "How did it feel to kiss someone? Was her lips soft?" He asked seriously.

"I-I'm not gonna answer that question, how about you try that with Megumin?" I said redirecting his question.

"W-what the hell?!" Kazuma said as he started to blush brightly, "I'm not some lolico-"

He got cut off as Megumin's staff hit him in his head.

"Ow! What the hell Megumin!?" Kazuma complained as he started to argue.

As Kazuma argued with Megumin, we couldn't help but laugh at this silly situation.

Darkness' on the other hand, grabbed my sleeve lightly and pulled me aside.

"Did...did you….really kiss me…?" She whispered to me in hopes of not getting unnecessary attention.

"Um...in hindsight...you could say that...but all I did was manually breathe air into you...so…" I said trying to explain myself.

"I see…" Darkness said as she had a slight look of understanding before she drug me closer and whispered into my ear, "Then...I'll be looking forward to the real thing soon…"

O dam….

While the rest of the party focused on Kazuma and Megumin being themselves, me and Darkness sat together in silence as we enjoyed our company together.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Holy fucking Ultra Instincts.

I wrote this entire thing in just a week, and I say this entire thing because I originally wanted this to be a single chapter, but because I don't want you guys to read a literal 10k chapter...again, I just split this up into 2 chapters.

It's amazing what dubstep music that pressures you can do when you listen to it for a solid 30 minutes 5 times...

If you want to know what I mean, listen to 'Roar! Roar! Roar!' in the DMCV OST, it's a damn good track that likes to pressure you.

Now some of you may be asking where I've been for the past week or two, well I say some but probably only 3-5 of you are asking that, I've been both working on my other story and Working...

...and playing MGR and MGSV again on the PC because Steam Summer Sale

Damn are those games really good…

Alright, enough chit chat from me, let me see what you guy left a month ago at this point…

 _Questions:_

 _Lorenzo (Guest)_ _What is Tsukiyo stats so far and what is his level? Who has the highest level out of the party_

I'll make an OVA that displays his now updated stats soon, but if you go all the way to the chapter before the long ass trip, you should see it there. I haven't updated it yet, but I need to soon.

For the highest level, it has to be Tsukiyo since he may or may not be at level 50? I'm not sure just yet.

 _DoortoLight47_ _I am curious though, would Tsukiyo learn any original skills when he absorbs the power of demons from Konosuba? Like how he gained Clairvoyance when he absorbed the demonic energy from Vanir?_

I have been trying to find some kind of power to give to Tsukiyo from absorbing. Not only for general uses in fighting, but also for plot.

Tsukiyo got his Clairvoyance because I wanted the plot to kick in, but I'm still thinking about what to do for Hans...

 _Gen2324_ _Out of curiosity how much EXP would all those demons he just killed offer? Also seeing as how Tsukiyo had a vision where there was an event similar to DMC 5, will there be a Nico who would make the Devil Breakers, a Character like her or someone else?_

Since the Empusa's are really weak to begin with, not a lot probably but since there were hordes of them, they can probably give a decent amount for one level up.

Hahaha, remember when Kosuke said that he knew a person with Weapon Creation Magic and he got most of his DMC weaponry from them? I swear I did not plan for that person to become an actual character, but hey they will now!

 _A Guest account who did not leave a name, so I'll call you Bobby._ _I'll look forward to that Monster Hunter arc, but I only played MH:FU so I may not understand some concepts, but will you include the awful plesioth hip check hit boxes? That was my nightmare when I tried using a longsword, I forced myself to switch to light bowgun. Also will you include monsters from G rank? I only got to high rank before stopping._

Don't worry about some of the concepts, I'll be trying my best to explain some of the mechanics around the concepts of WORLD, the monsters, and the weaponry.

I'm not sure if I'll add the Lava fish (Plesioth) into the mix, but there will be more traditional monsters in the chapters like Rathalos, Bagel (Bazelgeuse), Great Jagras, and others that will be from there.

I'm nowhere near G-rank despite being 200 hrs in, so I'm not sure if I'll go that far, but I will do a lot of research if it seems like a good idea in the long run.

 _Fan007_ _Is this novel still alive?_

No.

Now while I would love to respond to a couple of reviews, there aren't a lot to reply to since the majority of them are commenting on Tsukiyo's berserk mode. I'll just answer this for most of them since all my answers are very similar to everyone's response:

Yeah, he went full berserk mode and has to get over his fear of killing human-like demons. I mean, it's not not something he wants to do but doesn't have much of a choice.

The demon killing business is serious and Tsukiyo's just gonna have to accept that, but I think Tsukiyo's been given enough of a reason in this chapter to not hesitate in killing them because of what Hans did to Darkness.

Will Tsukiyo continue his journey to become a badass Demon Hunter? Yeah he will as long as he's still alive, no doubt about that. Will he act more like Nero? I'm not so sure anymore because not only did he lose the Red Queen, I want to try and make Tsukiyo more Tsukiyo than Nero. Sure there will be times where he does Nero like things (riding a rocket arm like a skateboard is too good to not use, I can't wait), but Tsukiyo will still be Tsukiyo. I'm just not sure how long Vergil will be Vergil...

 **AnimeA55Kicker:**

I mean, yeah that does make sense, but then again. Shits and giggles you know?

 **Maze of Life:**

I will try to expand Darkness' character even more, since I know I'm not done with her yet.

I want to try to combine some tasteful masochism in with her genuinity throughout this story.

 **Jaredzky Mioza:**

NO! You're not allowed to cliffhanger me in a review, that's illegal! What happened to your two friends?! Did the virus catch them?!

Explain Dammit!

But jokes aside, If someone had the same name as me, or at least the same "Online ID" I use for this site, then maybe, just maybe they just might be more weeb than me.

And this is technically the truth, put my Online ID in google translate, go ahead.

 **Arash San:**

I don't think this really counts as a self-insert character, it's more of an Original one.

Why?

While I do love DMC as a series, If you wanna talk genuine love for a game, talk to me about CoD, Need For Speed, or Metal Gear Solid.

 _Epilogue:_

On a separate mountain with a clear view of the major battle, a mysterious figure watched it all unfold with his feathery companion as he sat near the edge of the mountain.

"Alright! Front row seats to a gladiator match. Can't wait to see how this ends." Griffon said.

"Yes, quite a sight to behold...but we already know the clear Victor of this battle…" V said as he flipped a page from his old leather book.

"Yeah, I know. We wouldn't of been able to get this far without the help of that Masked Devil back in town." Griffon said as he continued to flap around V, "But you know, I'm still confused, what was the point of me tailing him in the carriage if you were just gonna meet him yourself?"

"I wanted to measure him and his power. We need him strong for when the true demon comes out." V said as he closed his book, "We were brought out of Vergil's body for a reason and each of us has a role to fill. But with the way he is right now, we may need to speed things up."

"You might be right about that, we got ambushed by that sabertooth just to get up here. What do they call it? A Rookie Killer? Anyways, that thing was fast, but our big bad kitty over here just decimated it like nothing!" Griffon said as he landed next to the resting Shadow.

"That is true, but a species like that is meant for those with mediocre fighting ability. You three on the other hand...you were created for the sole purpose of defeating Dante…" V said as his hand rested on Shadows head, "But in simple terms, you were meant to decimate whoever gets in your way."

"Yeah, yeah. We get that. It may have been centuries since Mundus created us, but we understood our sole objective. Can't say that I miss the fucker ever since Dante whacked 'im. Isn't that right Mr. Grouchy?" Griffon asked Shadow, all Shadow replied with was just a low growl.

V stood up from where he sat as he began to walk down the mountain side.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where're you going V? Things were about to get juicy." Griffon said as he followed his "Master."

"I've seen all I've needed to see. We can return to Axel and lay in wait there. For now, we've done our job." V said as he snapped his fingers and summoned Nightmare, a powerful abomination even Mundus feared.

Nightmare bursted through a piece of fabric that held dimensions intact as it came to pick up V. Both Shadow and Griffon disappeared as they fused back into V as his 'Tattoos'.

 _So all we have to do is wait in town for something to happen? That's it?_

Yes, that and obtain a little bit of pocket money. Trust me. All the pieces are falling into place, time will do the rest.

 _Alright Shakespeare, keep planning your play. I'm getting some shut eye._

Nightmare walked back through the dimension rift with V on top.

Tsukiyo...what an interesting person you are…

If what the Masked Devil said is true...then you may have created a Time Paradox in our favour…

What an interesting turn of events...

(Deeper into this convoluted ass rabbit hole I go. -Konran)


	54. Vergil Kicks My Ass P2 (OVA)

Holding the Broadsword in my left hand tightly, I was trying to push Vergil back from attacking me, only to get forced to back up and go on the defensive as he continued to rush at me with the Yamato on hand.

I was able to block most of his attacks and even tried parrying them back, but I wasn't given enough breathing room as I still got overwhelmed by him and his spectral body double.

As I got pushed back, Kosuke sent a couple of Lucifer spears towards me both towards the ground and suspending them in the air. This cut off some of my movement and forced me to move in a predictable manner.

Being distracted by too many things going on, I was caught off guard and was smacked point blank in the face by the Scabbard of the Yamato. This sent me flying back towards the Mansion.

"Come on!" Kosuke taunted, "Is that the best you can do? We're not even getting serious, right big bro?"

"Don't touch me, imposter." Vergil said to him coldly.

"Easy for you guys to say! This is a three on one!" I complained as I got up and readied my sword again.

"And? You're point?" Vegril said as he tried to judgement cut me.

I barely dodged out of the way since I'm only given a split second to react to it.

Vergil's spectral double rushed towards me with a spectral sword in hand as it tried to lunge its sword at me.

Using Darkness' broadsword, I redirected it's lunge towards me as I used the momentum to move it away from me.

It was at this time that Kosuke stopped going on the ranged side and started to get up close and personal.

Despite me dreading this in every way possible, Darkness continued to cheer me on, on the sidelines while being envious of the pain I'm going through right now.

Ugh….why did things have to get this complicated…

 **-A couple hours earlier-**

So far it's been about a week ever since the Hot Springs incident. For this past week, everyone's been relaxing and doing some quests to fill the time.

The moment we got back in our Mansion though, Vergil told me to prepare for some training within the week.

He's popped out of my arm for most of the day and always came back when it was about to turn nighttime. I'm not sure what he's been doing for that time, but he seems to be working hard at work on something.

Just at the crack of dawn, where no one is awake just yet, Vergil popped out of my arm once again while I was still asleep and hit me straight in the face-, "Get up. We're going for a jog." He said coldly.

I got up and looked around in a panic thinking I was getting assaulted, when it was only really Vergil, "It's not even morning yet, can't you wait a couple more hours?" I tried to tell him.

He responded by summoning his Gauntlets he called Beowolf.

"Ok, I'm up!" I said out of fear as I got up from my bed and headed towards the bathroom.

After washing up and eating some breakfast, I put on a tracksuit the tailor made me based off what Kazuma has and headed out the Mansion.

For the next couple of hours, I jogged with Vergil all throughout Axel and went almost everywhere.

Starting from the Mansion, we jogged to the Tavern, then to the Shop Wiz and Vanir ran, to the residential area of Axel where normal people lived, to the boonies of Axel where most of the trash, bandits, and where Dust lives, to the inner walls, and back to the Mansion. All with in 4-5 hours.

By the time I got back, everyone in the Mansion was already awake and was about to do whatever they did for the day.

As I opened the Mansion doors and headed inside, I was somewhat met with either confused faces or plugged up noses. I don't really blame them since I was covered in sweat.

Kazuma looked at me weirdly, "So uh….you went for a jog?" He asked.

I was a bit out of breath as I replied to him, "Yeah...4...to 5...hours…"

He was really shocked to hear that like most normal people would, "Ok, but why though? It's not like there's some marathon going on here, why are you doing something so intense?" Kazuma asked.

Vergil came from behind me as he answered Kazuma's question, "Because it's this great act of exercising your body and honing your skills called training. You should try it sometime."

Vergil then went towards the living room and sat down on the couch to rest, "Go take a shower and relax, we're gonna start combat training in an hour."

I hung my head in sadness because I already knew what was about to happen, which was Vergil kicking my ass part 2.

I took my shower and relaxed for the hour as Vergil told me, only to realise something before we were about to start, "Hold on, I forgot that I don't have my sword anymore. How am I gonna defend myself without one?" I asked him as I sat right next to him.

He thought for a minute or two before turning his head towards Darkness, "Noble Lady, lend him your broadsword." He said to her.

Darkness didn't look surprised as he told her what to do, "Sure. I was just about to do that." She said happily as she went to get her sword.

Darkness went and got her sword for me to use to start training with Vergil. It didn't weigh much differently compared to the Red Queen; It had a good handle, the blade was a bit long, and you basically needed two hands to swing it effectively.

Both me and Vergil stepped outside of the Mansion, with Darkness following behind us, and was about to begin our training.

"Last time I trained you was back in the village where you were able to take out at least 3 different people. I thought that you wouldn't need anymore training until you started going up against more complicated foe, but it seems I was wrong." He started to lecture me.

"As of right now, It seems like you need more training. Not only did you get overwhelmed by the massive horde of Hellbats that ambushed us while you were on your way to the Town of Hot Springs, but you were almost completely beaten by a Demon General slime."

"I'm not sure if the main cause of your failure is due to me not preparing you enough, but all that will change within this week." Vergil Finished as he took his right hand and gripped his left shoulder tightly as he dragged out a spectral ghost version of himself, "Thanks to the slime you absorbed from your last battle, I can use the slimes body double technique to train you."

So not only will I get my assed handed to me once, but I can get it handed to me 2 different times today? Amazing! So great you know! It's not like I'm fearing for my own safety or anything!

"I previously trained you with the intent of small battles ranging between 2-3 opponents in mind, but as of right now, I'll teach you how to take on multiple opponents with differing mindsets and abilities." Vergil and his spectral body double got into a fighting stance as they both prepared to fight me.

I unsheathed Darkness' broadsword as set it aside as I got in my natural battle stance of my own, or at least I tried to since I didn't have the Red Queen anymore.

With both me and Vergil were about to train (or have him kick my ass mutliple times), A voice called out distracting the both of us.

"Hey! Are you guys about to fight? My bet's on Vergil!" Kosuke said as he watched us from a couple feet away.

"Oh...Hey Kosuke…" I said as I gave a small wave.

Vergil groaned in annoyance as he heard Kosuke's voice, "What do you want, Imposter?" Vergil asked coldly.

"I was about to ask Tsukiyo here, whether or not he wanted to fight some demons with me. I even brought up Lucifer to make things more complicated for him." Kosuke said as he fiddled around with one of Lucifer's mini spears.

Vergil looked like he was about to send Kosuke away before some kind of lightbulb formed in his head.

"That doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. We accept that offer." Vergil said as went up to Kosuke, "To repay you, how about you join us in our training?"

Kosuke looked shocked for a moment before putting his hand on Vergil's forehead, "Are you okay? Are you feeling sick? Is Mundus taking control again?" He asked in a concerned tone.

Vergil slapped his hand away, "Don't touch me unless you want to join Tsukiyo's side." he threatened.

Kosuke put his hands up, "Okay, okay. Calm down. I'll help you in Training our little scrub over there." Kosuke said as he got in a battle stance with the Lucifer's arms extending out.

What the fuck is this!

Why am I getting a 3 on 1!?

"A three on one? Like this is even fair…" I complained.

"Most fights are not fair, deal with it." Vergil replied.

"If only we had some sunglasses…" Kosuke mumbled.

The spectral body double was the first to make the move.

It made its first move as it rushed towards me trying to attempt a diagonal slash towards me which I blocked. Compared to the Yamato in Vergil's hands, the spectre's sword was more standard and not as quick as the Yamato, but still pretty quick.

As the Spectre had its first move blocked it shifted its grip on the sword and went for an impaling jab. I jumped back from where I was only to narrowly avoid the impact of the sword.

Strangely enough, the way it made the impaling move reminded me of Dante's Stinger move, but less ranged.

As I was still jumping back, a large formation of blue spectral swords were summoned above me in the air and had each individual sword be sent towards me.

With the Blue Rose, I tried shooting at the main formation. Some of the swords got destroyed, but there was still a large group left.

So far the real Vergil hasn't made a move, he was still standing in the same spot staring me down.

It seems I've been focusing too much on Vergil and his spectre, since Kosuke started to throw Lucifer blades at me and my feet, "Don't forget about me, I get pretty lonely sometimes!" He shouted.

As Kosuke threw his spears, one of them grazed my cheek. Even if it was a small graze, man did it burn like hell….

Get it? Because Lucifer...and hell…and…

Ok fine…

Kosuke clapped his hands twice, the moment he did all the Lucifer spears made a small explosion and spread dirt and dust around impairing my vision.

Like I wasn't having enough of a hard time already…

The Spectre used this opportunity to start doing what Vergil called his "Judgement Cut" towards me in random directions.

With the dust and dirt kicked up all around me, I was somewhat able to see the subtle path the cut coming from. The moment I tried to dodge I was barely out the zone it shot out of and had parts of my clothes cut away from it.

As the dust cleared away giving me some clear vision of my own surroundings, I noticed that Vergil's Spectre and his real body were nowhere to be seen.

I looked around frantically trying to pinpoint them out only to nearly get smacked in the face by Vergil's Yamato scabbard and another impaling stab from the Spectre coming towards my chest.

Strangely enough, While I was able to dodge the Yamato scabbard from breaking my nose, the Spectre did lodge his sword inside me, but I didn't feel the sword actually stab me.

I sighed in relief since I got really lucky, I honestly thought that-

The Yamato's scabbard hit my face hard as I was distracted and sent me flying towards the Mansion.

"Oooo. That's gotta hurt!" Kosuke said as he winced in pain.

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness shouted from the sidelines.

"Don't worry, I'm think I'm good. No need to wor-" I was cut off as Darkness shouted once again.

"You look like you're having fun, Can I join in!?" She asked eagerly.

Of course she wouldn't worry about me…

"Of course, I have no problem with-" Kosuke tried to accept Darkness' offer, but I cut him off declining it.

I stood back up as I dusted myself off and readied my sword once again.

"You know what big bro, let me take the stage for a bit, Let me handle the small fry." Kosuke said as he walked up closer to me and readied his spears.

"Alright, go ahead." Vergil agreed for once.

Kosuke readied his fingers in the same fashion as a cowboy as he stared me down, "Tell me...Are you feeling lucky...Punk?" he tried to say in a gruff voice.

We stood there for a couple of seconds before Kosuke grabbed Lucifer spears with both of his hands and started to throw spears at me.

Since there was a good distance between me and Kosuke, I was able to deflect most of them with Darkness' sword while dodging others.

This lasted for a couple of minutes before I tried to grab one with my demon arm, only to forget that I wasn't able to use it since Vergil is out of my arm.

I managed to cut my wrist (No, I'm not emo, don't call me that) from that dumb decision, I stepped back as I winced in pain.

Kosuke took this opportunity to resummon all his spears and line them up as he aimed them towards me.

He launched all of the spears towards the ground at me again as the spears restricted me from moving at any direction.

I tried to myself back to Kosuke only to see that he got really close to me with one of Lucifer's spears on his hands aimed at my neck.

"Checkmate Compadre. Gotta do better than that." He said as the spears on the ground and in his hands started to fade away.

"Better get that cut healed up, gotta get you to 100% to bring you back down again." Kosuke brought up.

"No, let him bleed," Vergil said, "This is where the real training begins…"

In hindsight, that sounds really edgy, but when you realise he's serious about it, that just makes it a bit terrifying...

Kosuke looked at Vergil weirdly as he went along with what he said.

With my Demon arms wrist bleeding, I was once again forced to fight Vergil in a sort of bad state.

It started to be a 3 on 1 fight once again, but this time It lasted a bit longer.

Within the next hour or so, both me and Kosuke were sweating from the Sun and the training while Verfil still kept his cool.

"Ok, let's take a short break. I really need to for a bit." Kosuke said as he panted from exhaustion.

Vergil sighed as he replied, "Fine. We'll take a 10 minute break. Get the healer if you want." He then began to leaned against the wall of the mansion while slicking his hair back.

Darkness went to go grab Aqua for some healing, but because Aqua was acting like a bitch, she refused to do so since I didn't look that hurt.

Right...because me having 24 different bruises, a cut wrist that's bleeding, some burn marks, and a bloody/half broken nose doesn't count as being hurt enough….sure.

Since I've always hated how Aqua bitched about some injuries, I've learned from Vergil how to do basic first aid. Of course this was back in the Village since he managed to cut me up multiple times and break my arm once or twice…

I had Darkness go into my room and bring me the first aid kit I've prepared myself with some help from the towns local doctor.

While she did that, Kosuke sat down on the grass right next to me, "So. how come you're not using the Red Queen? You lost it?" He joked.

"Nah, it got snapped in half and eaten by a slime." I told him as I low out some of the blood from my nose.

He looked genuinely surprised as he heard my reason, "Wait, are you serious?" he asked out of curiosity.

"Yeah, you ever heard of one of the Demon Lord's bosses, Hans the Deadly Poison Slime? Just about a week ago we tried to go to a hot spring to relax for a couple days, and encountered him there." I said as Darkness came back outside with the first aid kit. As she gave it to me, I opened it up and started to disinfect my wrist.

"Me Darkness tried to fight him off as our trustworthy teammate, Kazuma, ran off after he talked tough shit to him." I said while bandaging my wrist.

Darkness spoke up as she joined our conversation, "Are you talking about what happened last week?" She asked.

"Yup, long story short, Kazuma and the team came back to help us, my sword got broken and eaten, and we managed to obliterate him." I said as I finished my bandage.

Kosuke looked deep in thought as he was trying to process all that he heard, "Oh yeah...I forgot about that…" He mumbled to himself.

"Hmm?" I said as I didn't hear what he said.

He looked at me and decided to forget it, "It's nothing. But, hey, you said you guys obliterated him. Did you guys really do that?" Kosuke asked.

"Oh yeah, he's gone. Off the face of this world, no way be can come back. Why?" I asked him

"It's nothing, just a bit surprised that you took the first step in taking a life that isn't a monster or animal." I told him. I wonder if Kosuke has had to deal with something like this once…

"I mean he did almost completely drown Darkness in his poison slime. If I hadn't done CPR, she probably would have died." I told him as I looked at my demon arm, "If I have to kill an endless amount of demons or humans that want to hurt the ones I hold dear, then so be it I guess. I'll do what I have to do to keep them safe."

Kosuke lightly chopped my head as he snapped me out of my trance, "Ok Doom Guy, whatever you say. So, what are you gonna do about your sword? If you want, I can introduce you to the Weapons Creator Dealer and have her reforge your sword, it'll cost a pretty penny though."

"No it's alright, I don't even have the money to- Wait 'She'?" I said as I stopped my train of thought.

Kosuke had this look of realisation before he told me who the dealer was, "Oh! I never told you have I? The Weapons Dealer is a girl, can you believe that? I thought it'd be some old dude with a lot of video game knowledge, but turns out it's a chick! Can you believe that?" Kosuke said.

"Yeah, I guess that's surprising to say the least. I'd probably never guess that it'd be a girl…" I said as I tried to imagine a girl who'd have a lot of video game knowledge that was that interested in weapons to the point of wanting to create them.

This imagination was short lived though as Darkness began to pout as she gave me some kind of look, "What?" I asked.

"Nothing." She said as she looked away.

What's her problem I didn't even do anything yet…

Kosuke slung his arm around my neck and chuckled to himself as he saw us, "Aww, you guys are adorable. So, How was your first kiss?" He said nonchalantly.

Both me and Darkness grew bright red as he heard Kosuke say that, "W-What?!" I asked out of embarrassment

Koauke smiled slyly as he responded, "You told me you had to do CPR to save her, That's basically your first kiss right? Tell me, how does it feel to be a young adult now?"

"That does not count as a first kiss, stop bullshitting me!" I said while trying not to give into Kosuke teasing, "Right Darkness?!"

Darkness nodded furiously as she agreed with me, "E-Exactly! He did that to save my life, that doesn't count!"

"Alright whatever you say…" Kosuke said dropping the subject.

"Alright," Vergil spoke up, "Break's over."

Ugh! Of course he would call off the break right now, I can't even think straight…

The three of us got back to our training as I got my ass handed to me 3x over in the span of 2 hours.

It was already sunset by the time we finished Training.

I was on the grass tired, sweaty, and even more bruised than before.

I pulled out my Adventurer card to see how much my stats have changed. With everything that's happened so far with Hans and Vergil kicking my ass again, I should be a higher level…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Main weapon "Red Queen" Has been lost or destroyed.

Half of all skill points spent on this weapon will be refunded.

Any passive skills from Red Queen will be exempted.

New Main Weapon will need to be registered.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Devil Bringer**

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

(Buster) Strength - 175% (Max 200%) 1 point per 5%

Lift Strength - 130 lbs (Max 150 lbs) strength increases as Strength Attribute increases

Devil Snatch - 14 ft (Max 20ft) 1 point per feet

Treasure Detection - Devil arm will glow brightly when near treasures or secret items within 10ft, can only be used when concentrating solely on the arm.

Shield of Credo - The Devil Bringer is now able to hold an enemy and use it as a shield, 40% chance of it working. Enemy can only be lifted if it's within the Lift Strength.

Bael's Cold Grip - When an enemy is being held on as a shield, it will not be able to fight back for 5 minutes. Enemies attacking the shield has a 25% chance of getting frost damage, and if the shielded enemy is slammed, it will shatter from 100% frost damage.

Unyielding Strength: When below 25% hp, Strength increases by 50% for the first 3 Buster slams

Demon Drain: Drain any demonic or evil essence from an enemy and use it against them via a punch or Blue Rose Shot. Strength increases depending on how strong an enemy is, x1.0-x2.5 Fixed dmg.

Power of Sparda: When fighting against more than 3 enemies alone, Devil Bringer grants increase of stamina, adrenaline, and style. Comes at the cost of caution and strategy, ends when all enemies are dead.

Grants 3 minutes of numbing pain when hit (not stackable, damage is still taken)

10% Vitality

25% Strength

-20% Intelligence

-25% Defense

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Blue Rose**

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Normal Shot: Shoot 6 bullets in the form of 3 shots, (2 Bullets per shot) Will take 5 seconds to reload, costs 12 mana per reload.

Charged shot: Drain the demonic Essence from enemies and use it against them. Shoots all 6 bullets in 1 Shot, Takes 36 Mp per shot, 10 seconds to reload.

Pistol Whip: Use the grip of your Pistol to melee an enemy, will have fixed .5x Crit. chance if pulled off successfully. Uses .75x of Strength attribute.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Abilities**

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Sprint Speed - 150% (Max 150%)

Air Hike - Gain extra an jump - Fixed at 3ft

Rainbow - Dropkick a bitch, fixed at x0.5 damage based off general strength (Current Strength: 170)

Quick Dodge - The moment an enemy attack, dodge quickly for a chance to counter.

Taunt - Taunt enemies to distract/aggro them

Devil Trigger - Unleash the inner Demon within, and face your foes with unrelenting power. Call upon the power the Sparda bloodline, and borrow power from Vergil, 2nd Son of Sparda. With this you can also call upon the Legendary Weapon, Yamato, to take down foes physical and spiritual. However, if unconscious, Vergil himself will take over until your MP depletes entirely, or until the host regains consciousness.

*Trigger heart - MP reduction has increased from 15 secs per 6 MP to 20 sec per 6 MP. Next upgrade is 30 secs per 6 MP at Lvl. 75.

Transference: Transfer 95% of your mana to summon Vergil, Son of Sparda. While he does retain all of his abilities and weapons, he is still connected to the host and can last just as long as Devil Trigger. All of the Buster Arms abilities, passive or not, are deactivated and will serve as a normal arm for the time being since the demonic consciousness are transferred as well. Devil Trigger is disabled when Transference is in use.

*Transference can up to 32 hours*

Uses 6 MP every 20 sec. 18 MP per Min.

Current MP: 1,750/35,000

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **Swordsman**

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Damage multiplier from using Swords - x2.0 (Max 2.0)

One Handed sword wielding efficiency - 90% (Max 100%) Next upgrade (10%) is at level 70

MP Usage reduction with swords - 45% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Finisher damage - Extra 45% (Max 50%) Upgrade 5% per point

Iron Skin - Reduce damage of other swords by 36.5% (Max 40%) Increases by 0.5% as defense increases

Lone Swordsman - When alone, caution is increased by 50% and sneak attacks have 25% chance to be detected

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 **General**

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Current Level : 60 (Was 47)

Strength : 170 (Was 128) Status--Hurt

Vitality : 2800/3700 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

MP : 35,000

Stamina : 145 (Was 108)

Defense : 165 (Was 128)

Agility : 143 (Was 110)

Luck : 130 (Was 101)

Faith : 25 (Was 10)

Dexterity : 135 (Was 99)

Will : 150 (Was 120)

Intelligence : 130 (Was 115)

Shooting : 85% / 100%

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Well, should've expected that to be honest, but at least I got some extra skill points from the Red Queen.

But still, I'm surprised I'm level 60. There's no way those Hellbats and bug demons got me all the way up to 60, most of the Exp. might've been from Hans since he was a Major Boss.

Kosuke cracked his back as he yawned a bit loudly, "Boy, this was a tiring day. But at least it was a pretty fun day."

"Fun for you and Vergil? Yeah sure. For me? Hell no. I'd rather fight the Slime Boss again by myself…" I said as I wiped the sweat and dirt off my face.

Vergil had already returned back into my arm now that the training was done.

Did I learn how to take on more than 5 enemies at a time? I don't know.

Did I get my ass kicked more times than necessary? Yes, Yes I did.

"Alright Tsukiyo, I'll talk to you later. See ya." Kosuke said as he left our Mansion front yard.

"See ya." I replied back as I got up from the grass and nearly fell over.

Darkness caught my arm before I was able to fall completely, "Nice Catch." I said

"Come on. I can probably persuade Aqua to heal your wounds. If not then we can bribe her." Darkness said as she helped me up.

As we walked to the Mansion, Darkness commented on how seriously me, Kosuke, and Vergil took our training.

"Yeah...Vergil is kind of hardcore when it comes to training me, especially when it comes to my own survival. Some of it I feel like it was unnecessary, but I don't really have a choice since he and I are connected in a way." I tried to explain.

"Kosuke, on the other hand, I know for a fact just wants to fuck with me and have fun while fighting. A complete opposite of Vergil. He told me he's been a Demon Hunter/Adventurer for 6-7 years so I think he knows what he's doing for the most part."

Darkness looked deep in thought for a moment before asking me a pretty interesting question, "If he's been Demon Hunting for 6 years, don't you think he should be at the Capitol instead of Axel?"

"Wait, why the Capitol?" I asked.

"The Demon King occasionally sends Demon Raids to the Capitol in hopes of conquering it someday. If he wants to defeat strong Demons, he should be there instead of here." She told me.

Huh...I honestly didn't know that.

"I...don't know, but if the Capitol is somewhere where Demon Hunting/Repelling is normal, I think he'd both make bank and get chased out…" I said as I tried to think things through.

Darkness seemed confused, "Hmm? Why would he get chased out?" She asked me.

"Don't you remember? He's a half-demon like me. I don't know how tolerable the people at the Capital are, but if Kosuke has to get really serious for some demons, his demon Identity will be known." I told her.

"I guess that is true." Darkness commented.

"Yup, which is probably why I won't be going to the Capitol if we were given the choice. Getting chased around by the Axis Cultist was bad enough, I really don't want to face people who hate Demons and face them off on a daily basis." I told her.

"Don't worry, if hunters chased after you in the capitol, I'd use my authority to protect you." Darkness said reassuring me, "It's the least I can do."

I guess I can't complain there, she does have some kind of point.

"I guess that's true." I said, "To be honest, I'm a bit surprised. You told me once that you didn't like the authority you had for being a Noble Lady, and here you are using that nobility for someone like me."

Darkness blushed a bit before replying, "W-well, that's because…" Darkness was about to explain her reasoning before the Mansion doors suddenly opened with Kazuma running after Aqua.

"Aqua you bitch!" Kazuma shouted angrily.

"I'm sorry! It's not my fault!" She sobbed as she ran.

"Should we…?" Darkness wanted to ask.

"No, no. Let's just leave them." I said pushing Darkness in the Mansion.

I tried asking what Darkness wanted to say to me, but she just kept saying 'Nothing' while avoiding eye contact.

I can already tell what she was going to say, but part of me doesn't feel ready yet.

But I guess I can't keep delaying things forever...I gotta respond someday...


	55. Guys and Girls Night Out (OVA)

_Edit: Pay no attention to the repeated Guys amd Girls Night Out chapter, my mistake._

 _\- Tsukiyo P.O.V -_

I was a bit confused on what Kazuma asked me since this might've been the first time he's wanted to do something outside of him staying inside his Kotatsu or lazing off all day.

"You want to have a Guys Night Out?" I said wanting to understand this.

"Yes, I want to have a Guys Night Out." He said seriously.

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"Should there be a reason why I would like to hang out with my fellow Japanese brethren?" He tried asking smoothly.

"No, but I don't buy your bullshit." I said nonchalantly.

Kazuma then started to beg, "Please! This is something I've always dreamt about when I had friends! A night to go out in town, get drunk and have a good time! Are you gonna deny a fellow comrade that request?!"

"Probably yeah. And Besides, how come you can't ask Dust and that Keith person? don't you always drink with them?" I asked him.

"Dust and Keith are good people to drink with don't get me wrong, It's just that Keith is out of town and Dust is back in jail for starting to many fights in the street." Kazuma said recalling his memories.

Oh.

I get it.

Asking me to a Guys Night Out is just your version of saying, 'Hey, my main drinking buddies are gone. Wanna be my secondary choice?'

As of today, there had been 0 requests from Kazuma asking me if I wanted to go out and drink.

He's either A) gone out drinking with Dust and Keith, B) stayed at the Mansion and drink expensive wine with Aqua, or C) Not do anything at all.

Personally, Kazuma can go fuck himself.

He was a pretty chill dude who had some sense of sanity and moral sense when I first met him, but now he's just become a lazy asshole from all the Money he's gotten.

"Sorry, but I'm gonna have to say no. Besides, if you're gonna have a guys night out, shouldn't there be, you know, more than 2 people in the said 'Guys Night Out?'" I asked him.

"Yeah, I know. That's why I wanted to invite that Kosuke person as well as Vergil." Kazuma said sheepishly

I was caught in a mixture of being confused and dumbfounded, "What?"

"You heard me. I wanna invite that Kosuke person you sometimes talk to. He doesn't seem like that bad of a person so why not invite him too." Kazuma said trying to persuade me.

"I don't think you understand, if we Invite Kosuke to Guy's Night Out, Vergil will not accept coming out of my arm to join whatsoever. Besides, even if Kosuke wasn't coming along, he still wouldn't join us." I tried to reason with Kazuma.

"What? Why? Do they have bad blood?" Kazuma asked.

"More or less yeah, they do. It's a bit complicated, but trust me you don't want Vergil and Kosuke in the same room." I warned Kazuma.

He sighed as he looked like he gave up, "Alright, fine. I'll drop the Guys Night Out. It would've been nice to hang out, but I guess you have better things to do than hang out with your fellow Japanese brethren." he said as he turned moody.

"Are you trying to guilt trip me?" I asked him

"No I am not," He said in a dull tone, "I am genuinely saddened from being turned down by you to participate in an activity of gathering and sharing, therefore I will be hurt for the rest of the day…"

You're so full of shit…

For the next couple of days, Kazuma continued to sigh when he had the chance, look off into the distance whenever I was in sight, and give indirect answers to me whenever I asked about something.

It got to a point where he got really fucking annoying and it started to affect everyone.

"Hey Tsukiyo, what's wrong with Kazuma? He's been moping around for the past couple of days. Do something before I hit him." Aqua complained.

"It's not my fault he's being annoying. He's just trying to guilt trip me for not accepting his Guy's Night Out." I told her.

Megumin then tried to cheer up Kazuma as she asked him to go out for a drink.

"I'm sorry, but I do not condone minors partaking in underage drinking. Please ask again in a couple of years." He said as he rejected her flat out.

Me and Darkness had to hold Megumin back from not only casting 'Explosion', but to also not hit Kazuma in the head with her staff.

After we sort of calmed her down, I had to walk up to Kazuma and face him, "Kazuma are still hung up on the Guys Night Out bullshit?" I asked him.

"Guys Night Out? Me? Certainly no, why would you-" He was saying in the same dull voice as before until I grabbed his shirt.

"Enough with the moody and indirect speech pattern! I know you're still salty about the rejection! Cut your Bullshit!" I said as I started to lose my cool and shake him violently.

Kazuma seemed to have snapped out of his edgy personality as he had a slight panic, "Jesus dude! Calm down! Ok, I'll quit the act! Just let go of me!" he said as he tried to pry my hands off his shirt.

I had to take a small breather just to calm myself down, after that we had to confront Kazuma.

"Ok, Kazuma-" I started off but he replied with a simple no.

I held in my frustration as I seriously wanted to punch him in the face…

"Do you, or do you not want to have a Guys Night Out?" I asked him while sucking up my pride.

Kazuma looked at me suspiciously before replying, "Why?" he asked.

Let me punch this dude just once….

"It's because of you. We don't want to see you moping around because it'll annoy the rest of us." I told him

He seemed to have gotten a big head and had the nerve to start acting all high and mighty, "Well, I don't think I'd want to with that attitude of yours…" he said snobbishly.

"I'm gonna shoot you." I retorted back.

"Well in that case, no I decline." Kazuma said.

I breathed in so heavily and violently as I tried not to beat his ass, I am seriously trying with all my might, to not kill this dude!

He's just so frustrating for some stupid reason!

"But…" Kazuma said lingering on the word for a while.

"But…?" I said trying to finish this conversation.

"...I guess I can't completely reject my Japanese brethren." He said as he thought he said something cool.

I exhaled all my frustration, "Fine. Whatever, good enough for me." I said

"Great!" Kazuma said happily, "Now, where's that Kosuke person so we can ask him as well."

Ex- fucking -cuse me?

"What did you say?" I said to Kazuma as he looked at me happily.

"You said so yourself, you can't have a Guys Night Out with only 2 people." Kazuma said flipping my offer around, "Go ahead and ask him. Worst he can say is no."

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Vergil please hold me back._

No.

~ ~ ~ ~

"Darkness please hold me back, I'm just about to kill this dude…" I said anger seething from my teeth.

Right as I was about to leap onto Kazuma and probably choke him out, someone knocked on the door before opening it and peeking his head in.

"Hello?" he said as it echoed in the halls, "Anyone home?"

"D-Don't just go inside! What if they see you as an intruder?" Another voice said as she feared for the first voice.

"Don't worry, he won't take it personally if I come in. He knows me too well." The first voice said as he entered the mansion.

I instantly recognized the first voice as Kosuke's voice, but I wasn't too familiar with the second one.

Come on!

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Did he have to come today!?

Kazuma had this look as if he checkmated me in chess and got up quickly to run over to him.

"Excuse me, are you not Kosuke? Tsukiyo's frie- Ahh!" Kazuma tried to ask until he let out a small screech from falling on the ground.

My right arm was latched onto his ankle preventing him from getting to the front door.

"Darkness, Megumin, help me!" I grunted as I tried to pull Kazuma back.

Darkness and Megumin helped me with pulling back Kazuma as I tried to shut him up.

This was sadly all for nothing as Kosuke stepped into the living room and stopped to see us holding down Kazuma.

He looked unfazed for a moment before stepping back and heading back to the front doors, "You guys look like you're busy...I'll uh...come back...later…"

Kazuma struggled for a bit after hearing Kosuke and broke out of my hold, "W-wait! Kosuke!" Kazuma called out.

He turned his head towards Kazuma as he heard his name get called, "Uhhh..speaking…" he replied.

"Let's have…" He said as I tried to shut him up, "Let's….let's have a Guys- Hey, who's digging at my spine!? Let's have a Guy's Night Out!" He finally shouted.

"A Guys Night Out?" He asked himself.

"Yeah! A Guy's Night Out! Tsukiyo says he already going, and I'm trying to bring Vergil too!" Kazuma blurted out.

Kosuke had this look of realization and smirked to himself, "Sure, I down." he said, "When do we go right now or later tonight?"

We can go in about an hour or two, what do you say Tsukiyo?" Kazuma asked me in an innocent way.

"Sure, an hour should be good…" I said begrudgingly

Still though, I'm surprised Kosuke actually accepted the Guys Night Out. I'd honestly thought that he'd decline since he was a shop to run, but I guess he has some spare time to hang out with friends.

But still...why'd he come here right now?

After an hour of burning time and not doing anything, Kosuke came back as Me, him, and Kazuma went to Town and had a...Guys Night Out? I've never been to one to be honest, so I don't know what to expect from this.

But if we're just gonna go to the Tavern to drink and 'Hang out', then I probably shouldn't expect much to happen.

Darkness waved us off as she watched us head into town. I wonder what she'll be doing while I'm gone.

 _\- Darkness P.O.V -_

As I waved Tsukiyo, Kazuma, and his friend, Kosuke I presume, off, Aqua came up next to me and watched them leave towards Town.

"Hmm. They're gonna have a Guys Night Out huh? Sounds Fun…" she said in a monotone voice.

"Yeah, it does sound fun…" I told her. I've never heard of Men having a "Night Out", but I can only assume it might be a bit similar to a slight celebration, but with only Men.

"We should have one too…" Aqua said normally.

"Yeah, we should- Huh?" I stopped myself from continuing my train of thought as I tried to understand what Aqua requested.

"You want a...Girls Night Out?" I asked her.

"Of course! Why do all the guys get to have fun? We should have one of our own! Right Megumin?" Aqua asked Megumin, but Megumin seemed to have something else in mind.

"Hmm. You say that but, don't we always have a "Girls Night Out" of some kind after we finish our quests? Kazuma goes to the Tavern to drink with his friends, Tsukiyo goes to bed early since he does training early, and I sometimes hang out with Yunyun every once in a while." Megumin explained to us.

She does have a point, we do, do that everytime we finish our quests, so it might not feel any different than those times.

While we were discussing to ourselves, a shadowy figure came out of the bushes and tried to present herself.

"M-Megumin!" the figure Shouted. It was Yunyun, who was covered in leaves and branches, "T-today is the day we settle our lifelong Rivalry!

Megumin seemed unfazed by this and ignored her for the most part, "I'm sorry, but I think you have the wrong person. Please go somewhere else." She said unfazed by Yunyun's challenge.

Yunyun's eyes began to well up with tears as she heard Megumin, "Megumin don't tell me you've made new friends and had forgotten all about me?" She started to sob.

Megumin, you're jokes with Yunyun are always harsh, aren't they? Or at least I think they're jokes….

"Megumin, that's it!" Aqua exclaimed loudly, "We'll bring YumYum to our Girls Night Out!"

Megumin had this strange face of confusion as she turned to Aqua, "It's 'Yunyun' Aqua, and are you sure? I'm mean she really doesn't have any other friends aside from me, so it may be a bit awkward you know."

"Don't worry, starting today we'll be her friends!" Aqua said happily.

Hearing that come from Aqua is a bit….off, but I guess she isn't wrong. Yunyun doesn't seem to me like she's a bad person.

Yunyun, on the other hand, looked a bit wide eyed as she heard Aqua's statement, "Is...is it true? You'll be friends with me?" She said as she had high hopes.

"Of course, why not?" Aqua said nonchalantly.

"Of course we will Yunyun. Why wouldn't we want to?" I said brightly to her.

Part of me wonders if Aqua really means that, but I'll at least be friends with Yunyun.

Yunyun seemed to have some tears well up as she looked at us Happily. Getting some friends is actually a big deal to her it seems…

Megumined pouted a bit as she saw Yunyun look like that, "Ok. Calm down Yunyun. Wait out here, we'll get dressed to go." She said as she headed back inside.

Megumin's right, It wouldn't be wise to go out dressed in my nightgown.

With that, we all went back inside to get dressed. I wonder what Tsukiyo might be doing right now…

 _\- Tsukiyo P.O.V -_

Alright well, we've reached the Tavern.

As I went inside and checked out some of the booths near the bar, it didn't seem that full. Actually, to be honest, the Tavern itself didn't seem that full or lively at all!

Linda was at one of the counters will a bored expression as she stared into the distance. With me and the others arrivals, she seemed to have snapped out of it as she gave me a small smile and wave.

"It's not as lively in here like most days huh?" Kosuke said as he took a sea near one of the booths.

"Yeah, I work here on and off sometimes, but it's never been like this to be honest. I wonder why..." I said as followed him.

"Well what's not important isn't the atmosphere, but the fact that we're here. Right Guys?" Kazuma asked brightly.

"If you say so…" I said to him as took my seat,

One of the waitresses' came up to us and asked for our order.

Both me and Kosuke order a regular beer while Kazuma got himself some expensive wine.

While we waited, Kazuma asked a question to Kosuke, "So tell me, are you like me and Tsukiyo?"

"Well that depends. More like the both of you? Yup, 100% reincarnated. But more like Tsukiyo specifically? Pretty much." He said confirming his identity to him.

"More like Tsukiyo?" Kazuma said in confusion

"You haven't told him yet?" Kosuke asked as he turned to me.

"No, not really. Wasn't a point in telling him if he didn't know who you were." I said

Kosuke clutched his heart tightly as he exaggerated his hurt, "Why Tsukiyo?! Why would you betray our kinship like this?"

"All jokes aides though, me and this scrub right here are demons." Kosuke said as if it was nothing.

Kazuma looked surprised as he heard the news, "Both of you are-!" I had to cover his mouth since he was basically shouting at this point.

"Shut. Up," I said slowly as I started to get annoyed with him. I removed my hand and wiped off any possible saliva that was on it.

Kazuma spoke once again but in a calmer manner, "I know that Tsukiyo's a demon, but you are too?!"

"Yup. Mainly because we both come from the same game franchise we both based our wish off of. Vergil too, but he's an Exact Character." Kosuke explained to him.

"What game?" Kazuma asked.

"Devil May Cry." Kosuke said happily, "One of the best games I've played as a-"

"Never heard of it." Kazuma said interrupting Kosuke.

While this probably would've been a normal response if we were back in Japan and having a normal chat in a McDonalds or something since you would've been able to watch something about the game, but because we're in a fantasy world where we're probably a thousand years away from the lightbulb, Kosuke gave this sympathetic look to Kazuma as he patted him on his shoulder.

"I'm so, so sorry." Kosuke said sadly, "I didn't mean to bring up any sadness over this. Forgive me."

"Kazuma had this look of mass confusion as he heard this, "W-what? what do you…" He said said while feeling weirded out.

"I'm so sorry that you couldn't have experienced such a well crafted game over being a badass. It's such a shame…" I said as joined in.

Iht was at this time that Kazuma knew we were fucking with him and he started to fet annoyed, "Hey now, why do I get the feeling of being made fun of?" he said in a low voice

Kosuke pressed his finger against Kazuma's lips stopping him from saying anything else, "Stop, Please. You'll only make this worse." he said somberly.

Kazuma smacked his hand away as the waitress finally brought up our beer.

Me and Kosuke snickered a bit before taking a drink of our beer.

"So tell me," Kazuma said as he took a sip of his wine, "What's so great about Devil May Cry?"

Kazuma has no idea what kind of floodgates he just opened.

Kosuke, for the next 15 minutes, started spewing information about Devil May Cry 1, 2, 3 and 4 to Kazuma, nonstop.

This...was the existence of a true fanboy.

"...and that's how the game mainly ended, at least what I know so far." Kosuke finally ended.

Kazuma looked bored to death as he finally regained his consciousness, "Ughhh….what a fanboy…" He said as he took a big gulp of his wine.

"A damn proud one at that!" Kosuke said as he took a big gulp of his beer.

"But that brings up another question, How did you get Dante's abilities, his sword, and all the other stuff? I thought the goddess' only allowed one item to bring with you when you start here?" Kazuma asked as he got suspicious, "Same with Tsukiyo, he got Nero's demon arm and that cool fire sword that got eaten too…"

"Hmmm…." Kosuke hummed in deep thought, "Should we tell him?" he asked as he looked at me.

I had a small smirk on as I wanted some form of revenge for the past couple of days, "Do it." I said.

"Ok." Kosuke said, he looked around the booth and motioned Kazuma closer.

Man I wanna see his face when he hears it.

The moment Kazuma leaned, Kosuke whispered it im his ears.

Kazuma face went from dead drunk, to understanding, and instantly to pisssd.

"What the fuck!?" He said angrily, "How is that fair!? Why do I get a bogus Goddess that racks up debt while you guys become badasses?!"

Yes!

YES!

The sight of Kazuma being pissed beyond his own imagination because of something simple yet fundamentally life changing.

Kazuma then grabbed my shirt and tried to shake it aggressively.

"I knew you were someone to be wary of to begin with, but I didn't know you and him would get main character treatment! Traitor! Turncoat! Scum Bastard!" He said angrily.

He did this for another couple of minutes before stopping and drinking his cup of wine entirely

"Well that was entertaining…" Kosuke commented.

"Yes, Yes. Quite Entertaining…" I said in a fake snob attitude.

Kazuma was right, having a Guys Night Out is fun!

"You guys can go fuck Yourselves…" He said as he motioned a waitress to get more wine.

Kosuke was smiling brightly as he was enjoying himself, "If only my big bro could enjoy this moment with us." he added.

"Oh…" Kazuma said, "Speaking of Big Bro...I was gonna ask Vergil to join us but Tsukiyo said he wouldn't….why don't you call him out?" He slurred

"You know that might be a good idea...Hey Bro-" Kosuke said, but right as he was about to call him, my arm moved on it's own as it hushed Kosuke harshly.

"Ok, well I guess that's his answer." I said as regain control over my arm.

"Really now….he doesn't want to hang out with his cooler, much more handsome-er, younger broth-" Kosuke said while teasing up until Vergil actually came out of my arm and was just about to slap Kosuke.

"Ah! There you are, come on! Take a seat and have a drink!" Kosuke said sliding over.

"I will not take a seat, and I will not have a drink." He said coldly

"What? Come on! You need to stop cooping yourself up in Tsukiyo's arm and come out every so often. It's bad for your health to stay inside too long." He said trying to persuade you.

"I stay inside because there is nothing out here that I want to associate myself with. Especially You." Vergil continued.

"Pssh, What's so good about being in Tsukiyo's arm? It's not like there's a house in there you can live in." Kosuke mumbled

"On the contrary, dear Imposter, there is. The house inside Tsukiyo's arm is the home of me and Dante." Vergil said correcting Kosuke.

"Oh sweet! We get a house?" Kosuke asked Happily

This seemed to have pissed Vergil off a bit more as he unsheathed the Yamato and pointed it at Kosuke, "You will not speak of my family's home as if it was your own…" He said seriously.

There was a loud throat clearing behind Vergil as he unsheathed his sword.

Linda was behind Vergil as she gave him a pleasant smile, "Mr. Vergil? Please don't use any kind of weaponry inside the Tavern. We do not want to kick you out, please settle any familial matters outside."

Vergil faced Linda and instead of staring her down and possibly mouthing her off, he actually a gentleman towards her, "I apologise for causing a bit of a ruckus in this establishment, but you don't have to worry. I'll be leaving soon." He said as he was just about to vanish back into my arm.

Linda, however, stopped Vergil from doing so.

"No, no. It's alright. As long as things don't get too rowdy, I don't entirely mind your presence here. Here let me grab you a drink." Linda said as she blushed a bit.

"Nono, no! That's quite alright...I'm not much of a drinker. I'm fine with some water." Vergil said as he seemed to have changed gears very quickly.

"Are you sure?" Linda asked him.

"Yes, I'm fine with water." Vergil said as he went back to being cool and serious.

Linda went over to one of the waitresses and asked them to bring over a mug of water.

Vergil sighed to himself as he didn't see a way to get out of this situation, "Move over. I might as well sit down here."

Kosuke happily moved over as he leaned on the wall and smirked at Vergil.

"What?" Vergil said as he noticed him.

"Nothing, nothing." Kosuke said as he continued to smirk.

Linda came back as she set down the mug of water for Vergil to drink.

Vergil was about to grab the mug before Kosuke intervened, "Oh Hey! Hold up!" He said, "I forgot to grab my mug. Almost had you sip some of my beer."

Kosuke slowly grabbed his beer as he made suspicious movements, "What are you playing at?" Vergil asked.

"What? I'm just getting my beer." Kosuke said innocently.

Looking at the mugs closely, Kosuke did in fact grab his own mug that was still in the same spot. But the way he moved and did things made it seem like he was grabbing someone else's.

Vergil squinted his eyes in suspicion as he grabbed the mug Kosuke had his hands on, "Nice Try, but you're not going to fool me." Vergil said as he took a decent gulp of Kosuke's drink.

Within the first gulp of the drink, Vergil fell over and didn't move for a couple minutes.

All of us were freaked out for a bit before Kosuke busted out laughing.

"Ahahaha! Hahahahaha! Oh god! He actually fell for it!" Kosuke laughed loudly.

"Fell for what? What Happened?" I asked him.

"Vergil...Vergil can't...hahaha!" Kosuke continued to laugh, "Vergil can't hold...his beer well…"

All of us were dumbfounded to hear that as we soon started to laugh as well.

What we didn't notice was the fact that Vergil regained his consciousness and looked at Kosuke with a death stare…

" **Ko...suke….** " He grumbled lowly as he emitted a dark blue glow...

Oh Fuck…

...is what we all thought…

 _\- Darkness P.O.V -_

All of us had finally got into something we were comfortable wearing, minus Aqua who wore her same attire.

We were walking around the town for a bit heading into shops that were open and taking in the scenery.

It was quite a nice pace for once.

This City is quite massive once you start to explore the area and take your time.

"I never knew this city was this big." Yunyun said as she looked around, "It's much bigger than our village back home."

"Of course it's gonna be bigger, our Village is only meant for us. This city is meant to take care of and train new adventurers and some veterans, they will always have space for them no matter what." Megumin said as she educated Yunyun.

What Megumin said is true though, Compared to where Father lives in his Mansion, the city over there isn't as big as this one.

"Ughh...I'm starting to get hungry, let's get over to the Tavern..I want some wine…" Aqua started to complain.

"Aqua didn't you just eat something before we went?" I asked her. I could've sworn I saw her sneak some food from our fridge…

"W-what? No! Hehe, no...Why would you assume that?" Aqua said nervously.

"I guess we could eat, why don't head to the Tavern it should be nearby." Yunyun said.

"Sure let's eat, it'll be your treat." Megumin said as she walked ahead of Yunyun.

I don't think she jokes around when it comes to Yunyun…

Poor girl…

As we headed towards the Tavern Aqua stopped stopped walking and started to shudder.

"Aqua what's wrong?" Megumin asked.

"I feel a massive Demonic Presence in the Tavern. I think it might be a Demon Army Boss!" she said as she summoned her staff.

What!? A boss here?! In the Town?!

We got closer to the Tavern slowly as Megumin held her staff tightly along with Yunyun's small wand.

There was a loud shout from inside the Tavern along with a blue glow.

Aqua fell onto her knees as she started to back up in fear, "Oh no...this is something much more than a Demon Army Boss...Much bigger!" She said as she started to get scared.

Much Bigger than a boss?! Is that possible?

If it's enough to make Aqua back up in fear then…

I prepared myself for something serious.

I'm sorry Tsukiyo, being a Crusader is a never ending Job...

The Tavern doors flew open as a figure with a red coat came running away from the Tavern, past us, "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SO SO SORRY!" The figure shouted as he ran for his life.

After taking a closer look at the figure, it seemed to be….Tsukiyo's friend?

"GET BACK HERE IMPOSTER!" A distorted voice was heard as he busted through the doors.

I couldn't believe my eyes as it was actually a blue and black lizard looking demon rushing towards Tsukiyo's friend.

Running after the Demon was Kazuma and Tsukiyo themselves.

"Vergil wait!" Tsukiyo said, "You CANNOT kill him yet!"

"Don't run in the streets, People are gonna have the wrong impression!" Kazuma shouted after him.

Wait...Vergil?! That Demon was Vergil?!

"Umm...Aqua…?" I turned to her wanting to ask a question of whether or not what we saw was the energy reading she felt or not.

"Y-yeah...it was him…" Aqua said while she was pale and in complete and utter shock.

All of us were in complete disbelief in what we just witnessed…

Aqua was the first to speak up, "You know...let's just call it a day…" she said while still shaking.

All of us seemed to have had a silent agreement as we parted ways with Yunyun and went back home.

 _\- Tsukiyo P.O.V -_

Yesterday was….a disaster…

Not only did Vergil chase after Kosuke for tricking him into drinking beer and blacking out, but he chased him all the way back to his shop and fought him for an hour before the booze in his system finally hit hard.

It was so annoying trying to explain this to the guards who came over to investigate after hearing reports of a 'Demon' chasing after a guy in a red coat…

...something tells me this will probably be the last time we try a Guys Night Out…

It was even stranger to see Darkness, Megumin, and Aqua act a bit more cautious around me. Especially Aqua, she won't even come 5 ft near me.

As I was relaxing in the living room with all the girls just about 20ft away from me keeping a close eye on me, I heard a knock on the door.

I went over to it and saw Linda.

Oh right...she's probably gonna scold Vergil for causing absolute havoc not only in the Tavern, but literally all of Axel.

"Hey Linda, sorry about yesterday. Vergil is never like that when-" I started to apologize before she cut me off from speaking.

"Oh no, no no no. It's not that, that I'm here for. Of course Mr. Vergil has a lot to apologise for, but it's not him I'm here for. Its you. I need a favour from you." Linda said.

"Me? What for?" I asked. It's very rare for her to ask me any favours outside of me doing Tavern jobs, so I 'm curious on what this might be…

"Well…" Linda said hesitantly…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Sorry for the day late chapter uploads. I was originally gonna make a beach episode along with the training one, but the Beach one just ended up falling flat and not being as entertaining.

So I had to delete that one on Thursday and write this one almost all day Friday and Saturday.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this one, but I can already tell that it's a bit better than the beach one.

I will definitely start the Monster Hunter episodes in the next update, believe me, I think I've done enough research on the monster, the armour, and played enough of the weapons that'll be shown to somewhat understand how to fit them inside the story.

With that, I noticed that this might be the final weekend of summer vacation for most of you, with that, I say good luck to those of you who are still in High School reading this, and for those of you who are starting college….

...you're really gonna need to pull a miracle if you want good grades and good sleep at the same time….

Alright enough chatter, onto the Questions and Reviews.

Edit: I just noticed something...In terms of how much I want to write this story out, We're basically halfway done with the story. Damn, I finished 4 volumes and only have 4 more to go.

 **Questions:**

 _\- DxHologram:_

 _I'm curious if Tsukiyo would meet the person who had Weapon Creation Magic Kosuke mentioned, and see if that person can reforge or create Red Queen?_

Don't worry, Tsukiyo will meet the Weapons Creator at some point, but not right now though. The Training OVA sort of gives the reason why.

 _\- Journey to the End_

 _A Time Paradox... It's not like the ones in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, where as Naked Snake (Big Boss) where you messed around and kill young Ocelot and all that right? Because that was hilarious when I first saw my older brother did that._

No, it's nothing like that.

I already have some kind of explanation in mind, but it isn't as grand as that. But my older cousin did do that one time when he fought against Volgin. It will be in the later volumes, but I'm still deciding when.

 _\- DoortoLight47_

 _For the Monster Hunter Arc, would you use certain elements from it, like the types of monsters they have in the game, along with tracking them down, crafting equipment and all the sorts?_

Yeah pretty much, I will add as much as I can that can be entertaining and I guess show how much of a difference there is between these 2 fantasy world with a somewhat similar concept of killing monsters.

 _I'm curious how V would hold it together without breaking for so long?_

That will also be explained. Trust me, it'll be hard pulling something out of my ass to make it work, but it'll work regardless. Besides, it terms of V living….it's only been two months.

 _\- Gen2324_

 _Now that his sword's broken, is he going to be using Yamato or another sword for awhile until he finds the person that could forge him another Red Queen with possible improvements?_

Yes, he will use another sword, but it won't be the Yamato.

 _Also a Time Paradox? I'm guessing the Canon Divergence is happening? Maybe certain events in the Light Novel may not happen or there some alterations that goes into a completely different direction unlike how the Canon event began and ended?_

I've been thinking about this and yes, there will be some alterations, a few very major, but mostly minor ones.

 _\- Saru_

 _The part with V was very interesting. So he's already aware of Vergil's spirit lives in Tsukiyo's Devil Bringer? If so, then is he planning to make Tsukiyo stronger too?_

Yes. But there will be no Urizen...just yet…

\- _Maze of Life_

 _Huh, so V already met Vanir. Does that mean Vanir is already aware of the future events that Tsukiyo foresaw?_

Vanir has clairvoyance so it may be possible.

 _\- Van_

 _Will there be more of Tsukiyo's fights where he is by himself?_

Yes, but it won't happen until the next volume.

 **Reviews:**

Guest who didn't leave his name, but I know isn't Bobby.

Thanks for the compliment, I really wanted to make Tsukiyo terrified at the thought of losing Darkness because of Hans. I'm not sure if someone who lived in the fantasy world could die and be revived again, but I guess this somehow works out too.

DxHologram

Like I said before, I didn't feel like making you guys read another 10k chapter from me so I just split the chapter up into 2.

The Empusa (bug demons) are literally nothing in DMC5 so it wasn't really much of a challenge for Tsukiyo to kill. Of course he killed them without hesitation, but I don't think it was the training that helped him out there.

Also fun fact, I never read the Deadly Fortune novel for DMC4, but I definitely plan to soon

Journey to the End

Metal Gear Rising was one of the very few major hack and slash games I've played in my 10 year gaming career. Aside from Devil May Cry, there weren't any others in my opinion that stood out.

Also, would you believe me if I told you that it took my at least 15 attempts to actually kill Armstrong in the last phase? Yeah, I'm that bad, but damn was it a fun game. I just wanted it to be a bit longer.

Favorite Boss fight has to be Monsoon, damn good fight with some damn good music.

I also played a bit of the Blade Wolf DLC that came with the game too, gave me a couple of ideas…

DoortoLight47

I've tried doing CPR on a test dummy back in High School but my frail boney as fuck fingers weren't strong enough to do it properly.

And you are right, CPR doesn't really count as a person first kiss, but if you're self conscious enough you can treat it like it is. There will be a kiss scene, and as a matter of fact, it's much closer than you think.

Gen2324

Oh yeah, I made sure Hans would be able to fight back seriously because not only is he a Boss to Tsukiyo and Darkness, but the fact that a slime can be a very powerful enemy, Thanks to the Slime Anime back in the beginning of the year.

Lorenzo

That's a very interesting view of the DMC4 story. Back when I originally played DMC4 back in 2008, I never knew any of the characters aside from Nero being a cool dude with a demon arm and Kyrie being the heroine of the game. I never played much of Dante because I gave up at Mission 13.

Most of what was said during the game flew over my head since 9 year old me just wanted to stab bad demons and be a cool dude, but after Reading your post, I guess you could say that was the general theme around 4.

Thanks for your view on the way both Tsukiyo and Darkness are interacting, I hate to admit this but I'm trying really hard to make this work. The Relationship thing is something that I need to seriously put more thought into since not only do I not know how to write in relationships, but also the fact that I'm a lonely boi with no relationship experience whatsoever.

Oh well, at least I have the Manga HoriMura to give me some guidelines.

Edit: If you haven't read HoriMura, I need you do so RIGHT NOW. It's a legitimate diamond in the rough, and I'm surprised it doesn't have an anime yet.

Maze of Life

The Color up ability in terms of usability on DMC5 is so good. To be honest, If I were to add Color Up to this story, I'd rather have it be an instant use instead of makeshift charge shot.

The Blue rose upgrade on the other hand does make much more sense. I'll have to play around with the idea until I can put it into play.

Guest who I can now assume is Bobby

Don't worry I'll make sure to add Rathian too, I'm just getting a general view of what seems like a good idea and what doesn't. Now just like I said in my last post/reply I've only played World and will probably stick to World. I don't know who Shen Gaoren or Lao is but I got s definite idea of how I want to start things.

Aside from that, I'd like to decline your offer and apologise since I'd rather do the research on this on my own. There's no bad reason why, it's just that when I put a Monster in the story, I want to know the monster inside and out to make sure it fits perfectly. I have to experience the monster and fight it multiple times before I add it in so I know exactly how it fights, what they do to keep distance, and how animalistic/hostile they are when it comes to a player/adventurer.

No hard feelings, ok?


	56. New World Explorers (MH P1)

"Hey!" One of the adventurers yelled, "Where's my food?! I've been waiting 20 minutes by now!"

"I'm sorry for the delay!" I said as I rushed from one table to another delivering their food, "I'll go check in with the chef!"

"Hey! This isn't what I ordered!" another one of the adventurers yelled out.

I took the food plate off the table and apologised quickly, "I'm sorry about that! I'll get the right one!"

I placed the plate that I had in my hands and set it down on what I think is the right table.

After that I made a mad dash towards the kitchen area.

"Chef! Where's the order for table 6?!" I asked him.

The chef's that worked in the Tavern were in full force as they tried their damndest to cook the food, "We're working on it, but we won't last long! We're damn near out of boar meat!" he yelled as he was gutting an entire boar.

"Where are the Hunters? Shouldn't they be getting the boar?" I asked him.

"They left about an hour ago, they should've been back by now!" the head chef yelled, "Dammit! Serve more beer! Go buy the Hunters some time until they get here!"

"Right!" I said as I grabbed at least 8-9 mugs.

"Erina, Gwen, help me with these beer mugs!" I shouted as I rushed to fill them up.

Both of the other waitress' hurried towards me as they grabbed the beer mugs and delivered it towards the adventurers.

I grabbed a couple of the mugs that were still on the table and rushed out the Kitchen with them.

As I rushed out, I nearly ran into one of the Cats that was walking in front of me. It hissed at me as it got out of the way, "I'm sorry! I'm in a bit of a rush!" I apologised

"More beer?! We want to eat, not piss all day and night!" One the adventurers complained.

"You'll get your damn food soon, be patient!" I snapped back at one of the adventurers.

The adventurer just took his mug of beer and drank it sourly as he gave a stank eye.

God these there are so many adventurers! In just a couple of hours of doing this, I'm just about ready to snap someone's neck!

Just how did it get so damn chaotic in just a couple of hours!?

 _\-- -- Yesterday Morning -- --_

"You want me to help out with some Tavern work?" I said, "Of course, I'd be happy to help. What's wrong though, you look a bit stressed."

Linda sighed deeply as she had this look of exhaustion and worry, "Well you see, The reason why I'm a bit hesitant to ask you is because we're going to be visited by the 5th Fleet Exploration Team."

"5ft Fleet Exploration Team? Who are they?" I asked.

Linda looked at me as if I said something weird before realising something, "Oh right, you weren't here when they left last year. The 5th Fleet Exploration team is a team compiled of a massive group of adventurers who go out and explore anything and everything unknown in nature. They explore uncharted territories of lands beyond what we see and beyond what's recorded in our geological database."

I looked at her in understanding as I made sense of everything, "So what you're saying is that they're Adventurers turned Explorers." I said trying to make things a bit easier to understand.

"More or less yeah, they are. The only Difference is that they take orders from a Group called The Guild, very similar to the Adventurer Guild I help run. They are more or less part of the Capital but more branched off and freeform. While they do take some orders from her Highness Iris, most of what they do is from The Guild Leader. They left for an Exploration Mission last year and about 2 months before you got here, so you just missed them sadly." She said as she finished explaining but then sighed again, "But as of today I got a letter from them saying that they'll be coming through Axel to stock up on food, water, and precious metals."

"Ok I get that, but why are you so down in the dumps? What's so bad about them?" I asked casually.

Linda had both her hands onto my shoulders and squeezed them painfully as she gave me a look as if she's gone insane, "What's bad about them is the fact that there's a lot of them! And because there's a lot of them they're all hungry! And because they're all hungry, they're going to come to the Tavern and run our food supply dry! Again!"

I grabbed Linda's hands off my shoulders as I tried to calm her down, "OK! Calm down! I'm joining in anyways and I'm pretty damn good at being a waiter. There might not be a lot to worry about, so just try to stay calm!"

"Oh...Tsukiyo…" Linda said as she gave me a warm smile, "You underestimate them too much…." she said darkly.

Right…

"Okay well did they tell you when they're coming to Axel?" I asked her.

"Yes, they did. They said sometime around the afternoon tomorrow…" She said as she tried to remember the date.

"Ok then, that's good. That means we can prepare for them in the night when no one co-" I tried to explain to Linda before I got cut off and she started to drag me off towards the Tavern.

"No! We are preparing right now! We need as much help and preparation we can get!" She said stubbornly

"Right now?! It's literally morning!" I said.

"That's good! We need as much time as we can get! The more time we have, the more food we can prepare, and the more food we can prepare is the more time we'll have to serve food until we run out of things to cook!" She said stubbornly again.

I wasn't able to get another word in until we reached the Tavern.

For the rest of the day, we hunted and bought all kinds of animals to store in the freezer.

Boar, Toad, Rookie Killer, Bear, Wolves, Sheep, and any other meat you could cook on a grill and eat.

It's almost scary how much these guys are preparing for the explorers to get here.

We've got meat of almost every kind and the freezer keep them in is packed to the brim, the fruits and Vegetables we're holding onto is too much and we have enough beer to give the entire town alcohol poisoning…

Is this much really necessary just for some explorers?

The next morning would be the arrival of said explorers we've spent the entire day yesterday preparing for….

...and man ...their entrance could not have been any more over the top than it was at that time.

Did you know airships were a thing in this world?

Yeah, me neither.

These Explorers came to Axel town...in fucking airships…

Did you also know that Dragons/Wyverns were a thing here too?

Well yeah, of course you would, it's the norm of this world to have them here.

But the very weird part about them is the fact that there are about 2 or 3 dragons being shot down by the cannons that boomed very loudly from the sky, if it wasn't morning or, you know, completely sunny, you could've easily mistaken them for thunder.

Linda gathered all the employee's of the Tavern; The Waitress', the Booth Women, the Chef's, hell even the Janitors, we were all called towards the middle of the of the dining area as Linda stood on top of a table.

"Ok people. We've been preparing for this for the entire day yesterday. We've done all we can to prevent any severe problems that we've faced last time. We need to put out 110% when those Explorers come to eat our food and drink our beer. When those Explorers come through that door, you need to be ready. Communication is key to surviving this day, all we have to do is serve our food, serve our wine, and resupply if we need to." Linda said seriously

Are these guys that serious about the Explorers…?

A loud commotion could be heard from the outside of the Tavern.

One of the Waitress' was near the main entrance as she was given the task to be the scout. She gasped audibly and shouted from the entrance, "THEY'RE COMING! 50 METERS!"

Linda shot up quickly as he face darkened in fear, "EVERYONE INTO POSITION! CHEFS, GET COOKING! WAITERS AND WAITRESS', START FILLING THE MUGS! LET'S GO, LET'S GO! THIS IS THE REAL DEAL!" she shouted.

Everyone ran to their individual stations as they got started in doing what they do best at.

What the hell is this atmosphere?!

Are we about to be raided or something? Like this seems way over the top for some explorers…

"Tsukiyo! You and Gwen will guide the explorers to the tables and help the Waitress' serve the beer!" Linda shouted as she rushed to her booth spot.

I did as Linda said and headed over to the front entrance with one of the other waitresses I got to know when I worked here.

Gwen was psyching herself up as she was breathing heavily.

Ok, seriously...who are these guys…?

The doors swung wide open as multiple men and wom-

...uh…

Scratch that...

The doors swung wide open as an entire army of 30-40 year old's were standing right in front of us.

"W-Weclome back to Axel Town's Adventurers Guild! Please follow us to the tables to be seated!" Gwen shouted as she looked a bit shaky.

"R-right! Please follow us!" I said as I guided both men and women to be seated along with…

...cats?

No seriously!

There are child sized Cats in armour walking upright along with the explorers!

As I walked over to the dining area and seated just about 5-7 explorers per table along with their cats, the dingin area began to fill up fast. In a matter of minutes all the seats were taken, booths, 4 seats tables, single stool bar chairs, even the waiting area was packed.

As I started taking orders for the Explorers, I felt a tug on my shirt from below me.

It was one of the cats that walked in earlier looking up at me. It was as grey cat with green eyes and black spots in what looks like makeshift bonemail armour.

Important fact: Was very cute.

I stopped what I was doing and turned my attention towards it, "Uhh..can I help you?" I asked unsure if this was the right thing to do. I mean it's an upright walking cat! What else can I do in this situation?!

It looked around and mewed lowly with it's ears low looking for something or somebody.

"Uhh...are you looking for someone? Are you trying to find a seat?" I asked it.

One of the explorers in a yellow jacket and a thick book on her side looked past me and saw the cat I was talking to, "Oh it's you!" She said, "You're partners not here yet!"

I turned around and looked at the woman explorer, "Oh it has a Partner?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, almost all Hunters do. This one belongs to quite a famous Hunters, though he may be a bit busy right now." The woman said before backing her seat up, "Come on little fella, let's wait here until he gets here!"she said reassuringly and cheerfully.

The cat took the lady's offer and walked towards her as it sat on her lap.

Right well...I guess the cats are their own person to an extent...

I resumed taking their orders as I filled out my entire notepad just for one table.

By the time I finally finished doing my route for orders, I basically had to relay it 3 different times so the chef's understood what was going out.

This continued for 4 hours, and in those 4 hours...well, you get the idea...

 _\-- -- The Present -- --_

I underestimated them.

I'll admit it, I severely underestimated them.

But in no way, shape, or form, should we have run out of boar to the Explorers…

With the way this is going and the 2-3 minutes breaks maximum I'm getting, this is Hell.

This is honestly what Hell feels like to me...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 _Hell is worse than this, trust me._

You're not helping.

 _Aren't you busy, waiter boy?_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Right as I was about to go back out and continue to take orders, it seems like some of the already drunk explorers were getting pretty roundy.

Of course in a setting like this, its inevitable or them to get drunk, especially when we keep serving them more beer to to delay the food.

But I guess it was only a couple of people getting too rowdy.

Some of the already drunk people are just being loud and having good fun, while those select few were taking it a bit far, especially when it came to the women serving them beer.

While I was about to go tell those guys to calm it for a minute, it seems like one of the other Explorers did the job for me.

"Oi! Zeke!" One of the explorers in a mix of iron and dark green dragon scale battle armour said with some kind of thick accent, "Hands on the drinks. Not the women."

One of the Explorers looked towards the man in green, "Oh shut it Alexsandr!" One of the explorers, who might be Zeke, shouted, "Just because you're handler isn't here, doesn't mean you get to be the boss around me."

Another explorer came up from behind the dark green wearing armour man, named Alexsandr, This time it was a man with curly blonde hair in simple leather armour and chainmail, "Hey now guys, Let's not fight here. If you wanna settle thing, how about we settle things outside? That sound good?" He said calmly trying to mediate the two.

"Tch…" Zeke smacked his gums as he went back to his drink and the two others went back to drinking with their comades.

Alright well that went a lot smoother than I thought…

The rest of the day went by as I continued to relay orders, delays orders to buy time, and serve more beer.

Thankfully and surprisingly, we were able to serve people what they wanted, even if it took about 40 minutes to do so.

So far everything was actually going smoothly.

People started leaving, more people come in and left as soon as possible to do other things, and people kept drinking.

As I was continuing to take orders from customers, I heard some familiar voices.

Coming from the entrance, into the already full and loud Tavern was Darkness with Megumin on her back.

I quickly wrote down the last of the customer ordered and headed up to them to greet them, "Hey Guys, We're a bit busy at the moment, but go ahead and find a seat, I'll be with you soon." I said as I hurried over to the kitchen to relay the orders until something stopped me in my tracks.

In the kitchen where most of the chef's were slaving themselves away, I saw a buff Cat that's half my height.

No, seriously!

There was a buff Cat with a scar on its right eye and a Bandana along with other normal sized cats helping out around the kitchen making food.

The buff Cat growled a bit at me as it looked at me barging in, "Only Chef's are allowed a here…" It growled.

...did…

Did the buff cat just talk…?

Honestly what the fuck is this Explorer team…

First the Airships...then the Cat companions….now a buff Cat Chef talking to me…

Am I dreaming?

Seriously! Am I dreaming or what! Because so far there are so many things I want to question but am too afraid to find out why!

After coming back to reality and accepting things without question, I relayed my order to them and left.

It's only for today.

You can do this.

Just. For. Today.

"No thanks, We're not interested…" I faintly heard Darkness from a distance.

I looked over to see that Zeke guy trying to flirt with Darkness as she continually turns him down.

While I would've ignored the situation since Darkness is great at turning people down, I basically had to get in between them as he grabbed Darkness' wrist roughly.

"I said No, please take your hands off me." She said sternly.

"Come on, don't be like that. We're pretty famous you know? We're an exploration squad capable of taking out 2-3 Wyverns at a time." Zeke said as he tried to pull Darkness.

I walked behind Zeke and cleared my throat loud enough for him to hear, "Excuse me, sir." I said.

Zeke looked behind him as he let go of Darkness, "What? Cometo serve me for beer? Where is it?" He said as looked down on me.

"I apologise, but I'm not here to serve you beer. You're disturbing this young lady and causing a bit of a scene. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to escort you out if you don't cut it out. Ok?" I said on a semi-professional tone.

"Oh really now? What's some scrawny kid like you gonna do if I don't?" He teased.

I chuckled to myself a bit as I heard him, "Oh trust me bud, it's best if you don't know…" I said showing my demon arm off as it glowed faintly.

Zeke didn't take me seriously as he looked at my arm, "You think I'm gonna be scared of some deformation? I've seen way worse out there, than you ever will in those forests."

It seems some of Zeke's drunken friends backed him up as they all stared me down, "It's time you learn some manners from your Elders boy."

The same blonde guy from earlier saw all this happening and rushed over to us to try and calm us down.

"Ok, now you have to stand down Zeke. You can't hurt a staff member of the Adventurers Guild. You don't want to stir up all kinds of shit that'll cost your Exploration License, Especially with the Commander in tow."

Zeke didn't listen as he didn't back down, "Out of the way Cowboy, there's no stopping me now."

"Zeke…" The dark green armoured man said from behind, "Don't make a Kakoy Uzhas* decision. Commander won't take any more Der'mo* from you."

(Kakoy Uzhas meaning horrible in Russian, along with Der'mo meaning shit)

I sighed to myself as I just wanted to get this over with, "Alright well, if you're just gonna stand there light a deer in headlights, I'm gonna do something more productive and not waste my time." I said as I started to back off.

"I would like to thank you for trying to stop your friend, uh.." I said as I tried to get the blonde guys name.

"Oh! Uh, my names Cole, but some guys just call me 'Cowboy.' It's no problem, I just don't want any unnecessary conflict." Cowboy said as he began to go back to his own seat.

Zeke took this as me retreating and spoke out once again, " 'Course he's gonna run right when things get good. Tell your mother I'll be home soon to bend her over! Get ready for a baby brother kid!" Zeke said as he laughed out loud.

I stopped where I was walking and sighed deeply. Come on, I really wanted to be nice here…

I shook my head as I laughed to myself, "Fuck it. Let's do this." I said as I turned towards him.

"Uhh...guys…" Cowboy sighed as he didn't try to intervene this time.

"Oh you want to do this? Fuck it! Come on then kid! Let's teach you your place!" Zeke said as he and his friends raised their fists.

"Wow...a three on one, how gentlemanly of you…" Megumin said sarcastically.

"Let's see…" I said looking at each of them, "Which one wants to play?" I said smugly as I pointed at each of them until I aimed my sight for the loudmouth at the middle. (If you've seen Nero's DMC5 taunt, then it's basically the same thing.)

People started to crowd around us as they either moved aside or back away to make some space.

As we were about to start fighting, Cowboy jumped in right next to me to help me fight.

"You know you didn't have to join in, right?" I asked him.

"Of course I do, I'm not gonna let this be an unfair fight…" He said in a positive attitude.

"If you really want to make this a fair fight, then you should've joined their side." I said as I made him stand back, "Trust me, these guys don't stand a chance."

I cracked my demon arm as it glowed and got ready to fight.

Cowboy took a couple steps back as he watched Zeke and his 2 goons try to surround me.

Some guy on the left of me tried to go for a left punch as the guy on the right aimed to get closer to me.

Thanks to all the beatings, I mean, "training" I've gotten from Vergil and Kosuke, these guys aren't really threatening.

I was able to swiftly dodge the punch from the guy on the left and keep a good distance from the guy on the right as he tried to get closer.

The guy on the left tried to get closer to while doing some kind of barrage of punches.

muda...muda...muda...Muda...Muda...MUDA!

I dodged each punch the guy tried to throw. His punches were pretty slow as he started to tire himself out.

By the time I was able to find some kind of opening in his defense, I tensed my demon arm up as I got close to him and summoned my spectral demon arm to hit him with an uppercut.

I sent the guy flying towards one of the tables as he crashed towards it violently and out knocked out cold.

The other guy I wasn't paying attention to went for some kind of sneak attack as he grabbed one of the wooden chairs and tried to smash my head in with it.

"Tsukiyo!" "Watch out!"

Darkness and Cowboy called out.

I turned around quickly and shielded myself from the chair using my arms.

I'll admit, getting my arms smashed by a wooden chair doesn't hurt as much as it should, but it's still pretty damn painful.

I was brought to one knee as the chair's pain was a bit much.

The goon tried to go for a sparta kick as he saw me on my knee.

I dodged it last minute and used my spectral arm to…

...Well…

...Let's just say he got a sex chance…

He fell onto the ground flat as foam started to come from his mouth.

I got up from my one knee and wiped away some of the wood chips and blood away from my arm.

Zeke was all that was left.

"So….you gonna take my advice and leave or do you wanna end up like guy?" I said as I stepped on the dude who almost had his balls removed and walked over to Zeke.

"I don't care what kind of tricks you have up your sleeve," He said as he pulled out a pretty large bowie knife, "I'm not gonna let some kind of kid get the best of me!"

"Zeke, that's going too far! Just give it up!" Cowboy shouted as he started to get a bit angry.

"I don't care if I get kicked out of The Guild, I've already got enough money to retire with…" Zeke said as he got in a fighting stance with his knife.

...boy, I wonder where I've heard that before…

"Causing a commotion, and having inappropriate gestures towards the waitresses and another customer, and drawing a weapon towards a staff member" I shook my head as I said in my professional tone, "...Now we can't have that kind of behavior in this fine establishment now can we?"

I got myself into a battle stance, "Zeke of the Exploration Squad, I'm giving you 3 seconds to give yourself up and let go of your weapons before things get messy. You guys on the sidelines might want to step back, I don't want any unintentional waterworks…"

"A lot of talk for such a small person. What a joke…" Zeke said as he started to walk toward me.

"One…" I counted down.

Zeke took this opportunity of me not preparing myself to rush in towards me and go for an attack.

Before I was able to get to Two, I leapt into the air towards Zeke and used my demon arm to grab his face and slam the back of his head towards the ground.

There was a large hole in the ground from where I slammed him as the top of head started to bleed.

"Hey! What the Hell is going on here?!" someone shouted from the back.

Almost everyone faces went pale as they all stepped aside and let a couple of slightly buff guys by.

"It's the commander!" One of the hunters said.

One of the guys was a tan old man with grey hair, the other was a man in his mid 30's with a buzz cut with iron armour/chainmail a chest piece and what looks to be a shotgun belt looped around his chest.

The last guy was a man who was almost bald save for a short thin mohawk going to the back of his head in bonemail armour with what looks to be animal hide pants.

"Aww shit. Of course it's Zeke…" The man in the Buzzcut said as he looked at him in disgust.

The old man with grey hair walked up to me, "You. What happened here?" he asked. He seemed very pissed off.

I pointed towards Zeke and his goons, "These your guys? If so, then I suggest you give them a stern talking to. I don't appreciate guys who walk in here and act like their hot shit. I also don't appreciate getting a knife pulled on."

The old man grew a bit red as he looked past me towards Zeke. He patted me on the shoulder and turned around, "I apologise for his behavior, I'll make sure he gets punished properly…" he said sternly as he was about to walk away.

"Ughh…." Zeke groaned.

Oh wow, he woke up. That was fast.

I turned around, "Alright well, I don't feel like dealing with you, so I'm just gonna kick you out." I said as I walked towards him.

Just as I was about to pick him up and bounce him, I grabbed me by the neck and was about to stab me with his knife.

My demon arm moved on its own as it grabbed Zeke's hand with the knife and pulled it away from me. Vergil saved me from getting killed quickly.

"Hey!" Cowboy shouted as he ran in to help.

A bright light shone around me as my Devil Trigger went off.

A heavy amount of pressure exuded from me as I started to crush Zeke's hand.

Zeke shouted in pain as he tried to remove my demon hand from his hand.

Vergil pulled out the Yamato and unsheathed it, "Trying to kill a Son of Sparda in that form? Pathetic…." He said as he was about to cut off Zeke arm.

"Know your place….Scum!" Vergil said as he was about to cut off Zeke's hand.

"Stop!" A voice came from behind me. The guy with the mohawk ran up to me as he tried to stop Vergil.

Vergil stopped his blade just about an inch away from Zeke's wrist, Zeke passed out from shock and pain as his body fell back.

Vergil resheathed the Yamato as he chuckled and made it disappear, "You'd think I'd sully the blade of my Father on this useless wretch? Funny…" He said as he turned off my Devil Trigger and disappeared.

I stopped glowing blue as managed to exhale deeply.

Holy shit I really thought Vergil was gonna cut off his arm!

Darkness ran up to me, "Tsukiyo! Are you okay?" She asked.

"Oh I'm fine. My arms a bit hurt, but nothing too serious.." I said reassuring her.

"That's good to hear. I didn't think that things would escalate this quickly…" She said recalling the fight.

"Yeah, me neither…" I said. I probably shouldn't have taken the fight on with Zeke, but come on! I'm not gonna let him diss my mom like that!

"That's some power you got there…" The guy with the Mohawk said from behind me.

"Yeah, it is. Though, it's a bit expected when you're half demon." I said as looked up to the Mohawk guy.

"A half-demon? Oh...so it's you that they were talking about…" Mohawk guy said.

"Me…?" I said in a suspicious manner.

The mohawk guy shook his and forgot about it, "It's nothing. Are you okay? Seems like Zeke's men gave you a bit of a fight…"

I scratched my head and tried not feeling guilty, "I'm okay….but, I feel like it's Zeke and his guys you should be worried about. I mean, I pretty much destroyed them. Especially this dude…" I said pointing at the Sex change dude.

"Don't worry about them, compared to what we deal with on a daily, a bar fight won't messed them up too bad…" The mohawk guy said as he looked around. "What are you looking at? Nothing to see here anymore, go back to you conversations." He said loudly

I heard a meow come from behind me as the Cat from earlier ran up to the Mohawk guy.

"Whoa there. So this is where you ran off to, huh?" He said as he lifted up the cat and gave it a small smile.

"Hey! Partner!" The same lady in the yellow jacket said as he came up to us.

"Regina, you're here too?" He said as he put down the cat.

"Uh huh! You won't believe how good the food here is! You have to try some, it's really-" Regina, the woman in the yellow jacket was cut off as a roar and some explosions were heard from outside.

Is that….

...Why do I hear Boss Music?

All of the Explorers who were loud went dead silent as they heard the roar from outside.

The Mohawk guy turned towards the exit as he heard the roar, "Looks like that might have to wait. Cowboy, Tachanka, let's go!" He shouted as he and the rest of the explorers rushed outside.

"Yup, whatever you say Turok…" Cowboy said as he followed after him.

The man in the iron and Dragon armour got up from his seat and followed after the two.

Turok…

What a weird name...

* * *

Man I've been waiting so long to write this chapter out.

I had to stop myself from writing anymore just to save it for the next chapter.

By the way, who remembers Turok?

I know I can't be the only one who does….I mean...am I?

Uh...Questions:

 _\- Gen2324 and Heron_

 _How well can Tsukiyo use swords that aren't Red Queen or Yamato? In terms of swordsmanship, is he at least intermediate nearing expert?_

 _\- So how well does Tsukiyo fights with a sword that's not his own and Yamato? Like how long would it take for him to become a Swordmaster of his own right?_

Both are basically the same question, so I'll answer them as one.

Despite not having the Red Queen anymore, Tsukiyo can pretty much hold his own with basically any sword. If you take into account with how well Vergil "trained" him, I think he can basically use any sword as long as it isn't too heavy.

It's almost like driving. There are different makes and models of cars, but the fundamentals of using them are still the same.

In terms of Tsukiyo's Swordsmanship, he is no doubt above intermediate. Expert? Not sure, gotta think it out.

 _\- DxHologram_

 _I'm guessing now the Monster Hunter Arc finally begins?_

No...

Reviews:

 **DxHologram:**

Yeah, as of right now and in the next volume, a lot of things are gonna change. I don't know how much will change since I have a somewhat vague idea, but there will be change. Good and Bad.

 **DoortoLight47:**

As fanfiction-y as that sounds, it's an actual canon thing from the DMC3 manga. When Vergil hid his identity as Gilver, Dante challenged him to a drinking contest and lost within the first mug. I think at least.

 **Journey to the End:**

Not sure if it was just me but I don't think I've used blade mode in actual combat. I mean I've used it when the icon for it popped up, but aside from that I don't think I used it that much.


	57. ENEMY AC-130 ABOVE! (MH P2)

As I was about to go back and probably help out in the kitchen, I noticed that Darkness was about to head out the Tavern as well.

I stopped her before she could leave, "Hey, where are you going?" I asked her.

"I'm going to help out. If those guys are fighting off a Dragon then they are gonna need all the help they can get.." She replied as she got her broadsword ready.

"Darkness, we're not strong enough to fight dragons and Wyverns by ourselves, leave this to the Exploration squad, these guys are professionals." I said trying to persuade her.

"I can't do that Tsukiyo. No matter what the situation calls for, Crusaders are meant to help the weak and defend those who cannot fight." She said seriously as he moved past me.

"But still...even with your ridiculously high defense, I can't help but worry about you, you know." I said while slightly blushing.

Darkness blushed as much as I did, but gave me a warm smile, "Don't worry, I'll be alright. There have been worse situations we've been in, so this isn't much compared to them."

"Yeah, I guess you're right…" I said as recalled facing off against Beldia, Vanir, and Hans.

Darkness left the Tavern as she hurriedly rushed out to help anyone in need.

I turned back and was about to go back to the kitchen and see if they needed any help.

Before I was able to even get near the kitchen Linda walked past me and looked a bit...off...

"Uh...Linda…?" I called out to her in concern.

Linda looked completely spaced out before she snapped out of it when she heard my name.

"Huh…..? Oh….Tsukiyo…." She said slowly.

"Are you okay there Linda? Do you need some rest?" I asked her. From my point of view, it looked like she was about to fall over from exhaustion.

"N-no. no, I don't need to rest..I need to prepare for the 2nd wave of customers…" She mumbled as she tried to walked towards the dining area.

"The 2nd wave is already gone, they're outside fighting off a dragon that invaded town." I told her as she got spooked at what she heard me say.

"A dragon is attacking Axel?!" She said as she tried to run off someplace else until falling on her knees.

"Hold on, where are you going? You're basically falling apart." I told her as I helped her up.

"I gotta notify the adventurers...and the civilians too…" She said weakly

"We'll get someone else to fill in your place, just get some rest." I said trying to persuade her.

"I can still walk...just let me do this…" She said as she resisted.

My arm glowed once again as Vergil came out.

"Oh...Mr. Vergil…" Linda said as she became a bit awestruck.

"Forgive me for doing this, but we don't have time to argue." Vergil apologised as he struck-

WAIT WHAT!?

Vergil took the Yamato's scabbard and smacked in the back of the head. Linda made a slight grunt as she grew limp.

Vergil managed to catch Linda before she hit the ground.

"Dude, what the hell!? You can't go around doing that to women! If it was Aqua, I'd be okay with it, But don't do Linda dirty like that!" I said as I tried to scold him.

"We don't have time to argue if there's a town being attacked. Get going." He said as he sat her down in a nearby chair.

"Even so, there are better ways-" I continued to scold him until he just disappeared back into my arm.

Ok sure, just ignore me. That's cool.

I rushed around the Tavern to try and find someone to sound the alarm for the already existing problem going on.

I somehow managed to find Gwen and tell her to start the emergency broadcast.

"Wait, isn't that supposed to be Linda's Job?" She asked, "I Should go-"

I stopped her midway from getting closer to the dining area, "Linda….passed out from exhaustion. I'm letting her rest in the dining area for now, but It's better for you to do it right now."

Gwen looked at me weirdly but accepted my words nonetheless as she went over to the broadcast area and sounded the alarm, "Emergency Broadcast! Emergency Broadcast! We are being attacked by Wyverns! Civilians and low leveled adventurers please evacuate immediately! Mid to High rank adventurers, please help out the Exploration Squad in repelling these beasts!"

I rushed over to the lost and found near our break room and looked through it for a solid 5 minutes before pulling out some random broadsword.

I took it out of its sheath and left it behind as I rushed outside to help out in the fight.

I looked around the Tavern, so far there was no Wyvern in front of it, but I did find some strange craters and some black egg like scales in a couple of spots.

I was just about to get closer to it, if it wasn't for the Wyvern roaring once again in the sky while dropping those same scales below me.

What's the point of the scales, It doesn't seem to-

Wait are they smoking?

Ok, I need to back up before shit gets really-

There was a large crashing noise against the ground that would soon be followed by tremors almost knocking me off balance.

As the tremors went on, the scales that were right in front of me and mostly on the roofs and buildings, started to ignite brightly as it shone a bright red to yellow.

I got away as fast as I could before all the scales in the area made a small grenade like explosion.

Ok, now that's some bullshit right there.

There are actual dragons that act like AC-130's!?

I got back up as the tremors stopped, but the dragon that sent them was still roaring for some odd reason.

Since the dragon roared every 2-3 minutes, it wasn't that hard to follow the roars and track it down.

Looking at the dragon, it was...strange looking to say the least.

When You imagine a dragon, you'd think of something that'd look like it'd be from Skyrim. You know, sharp beak/face, giant wings that help it fly, a body that looks similar to lizards, you know stuff like that.

This one...looked a bit like an eagle with a lot of cocoon-like scales hanging under its chin and most of its chest along with a pretty swollen looking tail with those same scales hanging under it. It's top portion looked like it had those same scales but smoothed back and golden.

The wyvern roared once again, but since I was a lot closer the roar almost deafened me and any other Explorer nearby.

Ok, well it was probably only me who got their eardrums blown out because the Explorers that were right in front of it seemed fine as some of them pulled out a couple of Swords and Shields, while one of them had a giant mallet, which in reality was just a boulder attached to a handle.

I ran up to one of them as they began to fight the wyvern.

"Hey!" I called out, "I'm here to help!"

One of them looked back towards me and glared at me, "Get back! This one's too much for a midrank!"

Since most of the explorers were focused on me, the wyvern flapped its wings towards us as making a lot of wind pressure towards us.

One of the Explorers, put his sword away as he pointed his left arm towards the wyvern.

Wait, there's something on his arm…

Looks like some kind of slingshot…

"Flashpod out!" One of the explorers shouted.

Flashpod?

I saw what might be a slingshot look alike in action as it launched something towards the wyvern and make a very bright flash.

The wyvern made a high pitched cry and fell onto the ground on its side while yelping and struggling to get back up.

The explorers didn't hesitate to rush towards the face and tail of the wyvern as they began to stab the shit out of the wyvern.

I'm going to be completely honest.

I honestly felt bad seeing the wyvern cry out in pain as its face and tail got stabbed continuously while it was struggling to make sense of what was going on.

I felt a lot worse when I saw the giant mallet man start to pound on its face with the sharp side of the mallet.

These guys are pretty savage when it comes to these monsters aren't they…

The Wyvern finally managed to get back up on its feet, but since it's eyes were still closed it was lashing out and attacking at every random direction.

I was just standing on the sidelines as the explorers and wyvern battle it out and didn't know If I could actually hop in and fight.

I mean this is my first time fighting a dragon/wyvern, I don't know if I'm prepared for this at all.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Oh for crying out loud!_

~ ~ ~ ~

Uh...Vergil what-

My arm moved on it's own as it used the snatch ability to pull me in closer towards the wyv-

OK SCRATCH THAT!

I'M NOT ONLY CLOSE TO THE WYVERN BUT IM NOW RIDING IT!

VERGIL WHAT THE FUCK!!

I was somehow now on top of the wyvern as I stood on it's back.

The Wyvern took notice of this and started to freak out, moving it's body erratically trying to shake me off.

I held onto the back of the Wyvern tightly as I stabbed it deeply with this random broadsword I found.

The wyvern made a loud screeching noise as it continued to move erratically.

I looked over towards the explorers, and while I would've completely understood them if they were pissed off at me ruining their fight, but I somewhat met with cheering and smiling faces.

I plugged the sword even deeper into the back of the Wyvern as it continued to freak out.

At this point, the Wyvern stopped trying to shake me off as it flapped it wings and started to flying higher in the sky.

I was gripping onto the sword my life as the handle of the sword felt like it was about to get destroyed from my grip.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Ok, maybe I didn't think this far ahead…_

YOU THINK!?

~ ~ ~ ~

The wyvern then began to shake its body from side to side.

I caught a small glimpse of what was going on and saw the scales hanging off the body of the dragon detach from its body easily and fall down towards the ground.

What the Fuck!

This dragon really is an AC-130!

The wyvern finally stopped shaking its body from side to side as made a sharp 180' turn and started to- AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

FUCK THIS WYVERN!

The Wyvern then began to take a nosedive straight towards the ground where most of the adventurers were.

The wyvern crashed onto the ground heavily making a heavy tremor all around the explorers.

For some strange reason, the Wyvern wasn't getting up from where it crashed as it started to wheeze weakly.

I got up from where I clutching the sword tightly and tried to pull out the sword only to have it snap like a twig while leaving most of the blade stuck in the wyvern.

I sort of crawled my way off the wyvern and almost fell onto the ground flat on my face before some of the explorers near me caught me.

Saying that I was shaken up from everything that happened was putting it very, very lightly.

One of the explorers was congratulating me for not only forcing it to take a nosedive, but for the fact that I stabbed my blade into a very vital spot on the back of it's head.

"Ok, if you head out and help with the evacuation, you can do that. We've gotta take out the other 2 wreaking havoc on the city. Take it easy, ok?" he said as he and his group left me right next to the dead corpse of the wyvern that I "killed."

I was doing some breathing techniques as my arm glowed brightly.

"Hey, that wasn't too bad for your first attempt. I'm impressed." Vergil said as he got close to the wyvern and examined it.

"Sure…" I said as continued to breath in and out.

"Are you still shaken up about this thing? It's dead already." He said unimpressed.

"Dude! I nearly had a heart attack from that things nosedive! Do you know how scared I was?!" I said trying to reason with him.

"Of course I do, we're connected remember?" He said, ok smartass.

"Ugh….I never thought my first time killing a dragon would've nearly sent me into a panic attack." I said to myself as I tried to calm myself down.

"Yeah, me neither." Vergil said as he continued to examine the body.

"Wait," I said, "This is your first time killing a dragon?"

"Of course it is, I'm a DemonSlayer, not a DragonSlayer." He said correcting me, "Though, I am a bit let down, it died very easily…"

I really wanted to say something, but since he is the Son of Sparda, I can't really show him any common sense.

"Hey!" A voice called out

Both me and Vergil looked ahead of us and saw Kazuma and Aqua running towards us.

They stopped dead in their tracks as soon as they saw the dead dragon.

"Is that a…" they both tried to ask.

"A Wyvern?" Vergil said completing their sentence, "Yes, yes it is. Why?"

"And did you guys just…" Kazuma tried to ask.

"Well, Tsukiyo didn't kill it by himself, but the Exploration Squad mainly did. Why?" Vergil replied.

"Aqua…" Kazuma asked.

"Yeah, this is too much for us." Aqua said as both she and Kazuma turned back.

"Hey! This is our town! Aren't you gonna help defend it?" I asked them as I finally got my balls back.

Kazuma smiled at me as he and Aqua looked at us, "I'm Sorry, but this is way too much for us. We're fine with the undead and stuff, bit dragons are a bit much you know…" Kazuma said innocently.

"He's right you know!" Aqua chimed in innocently, "My main forte is healing and anti-demon magic. You don't have much use for little ol' me!" Aqua said as she and Kazuma began to run away quickly.

"Hey!" I shouted as I finally got back up on my feet, Vergil held his hand out as he held me back.

"Leave them. It's not good to put your faith into unreliable people." He said as put his hand down, "We've got 2 more Wyverns to take care of. Since you don't have a weapon aside from your pistol, I'll help you out this once. Stay as a Ranger until then." Vergil said as he summoned a sword, but it looked a bit bland.

"What's that?" I asked.

"This is Force Edge. It's another sword my Father used, but I think you're more familiar with it in its awakened form, the Devil Sword Sparda." Vergil said as he sheathed it away on his back.

What!

"This is the Devil Sword Sparda?" I asked completely taken aback. This plane jane is the disgusting flesh blade of OP-ness?

"In it's unawakened form, yes it is. But because I don't have the the other piece of the perfect amulet, it will stay like this. I need to ask Kosuke about the other half someday…" Vergil said as he began to run ahead, "Come, we need to hurry before more buildings get destroyed.

I ran with Vergil as the both of us followed the sounds of explosions and roaring going on.

"Wouldn't it be better to use the Yamato for this? Why summon this instead?" I asked Vergil as we ran.

"Foolishness Tsukiyo. A Demon Hunter must use all of the tools at their disposal to defeat an enemy. If a Demon Hunter uses a single weapon and it breaks on them, that Hunter will be at a disadvantage for their battle and it may cost them their life. Sound Familiar?" Vergil said as he tried to scold me.

Of course he has to mention me in this…

"Has it ever occurred to you why Dante would always have multiple Devil Arms in his disposal? He has his Sword, his guns, and any other weapons he finds and claims. As much as I don't like to admit it, he's what a True Devil Hunter is." He continued "He has his Devil Arms as his back up plans, and I have the Force Edge with my Magic to make up for lack thereof."

"Get it memorized. No single weapon will last forever. It's better to have experience in all weapon kinds than to main one specific weapon." Vergil finished.

"Right, I'll make sure to keep that in mind…" I said as we started to get closer to the sounds of fighting.

The sounds of explosions and loud crashes were starting to louder and it started to feel more intense up until we got to the scene of where another wyvern of the same breed as the last one was fighting the Elxplorers, the only difference was…

"Hey! Get out of the way! You're not even hitting it at all!" One of the explorers shouted before I saw Darkness get run over and tossed aside by the wyvern.

"Why would I want to kill it!? This is the perfect enemy for m- Ah!" Darkness was trying to say before the Wyvern swiped its tail at her sending her away from it.

By the looks of her armour, I'm guessing this has been happening for the past 20-30 minutes because most of her actual armour is gone.

She got up quickly and sprinted towards it happily as the Wyvern flew off the ground and tried to run away from her.

Yeah, I probably should've expected this to be honest.

I mean what was I thinking?

Did I really think that she was going to help the explorers deal with a Wyvern that was somewhat destroying the town?

...W-well, this is somewhat of an emergency so I guess I did…

"Get back! It's gonna start its Bombing Run!" One of the explorers with a very very long sword shouted as he, along with a couple of others, tried to get back.

Just like the last Wyvern, this one was flying a decent amount above us as it was about to send the scales down to us. The only difference was the fact that the Wyvern's body and black scales were glowing a yellow and red.

The scales that rained down on us didn't have a small delay as it exploded the moment it hit the ground.

"Does anyone have a flash?!" Another one of the explorers shouted.

"You don't need one." Vergil said menacingly as he summoned a couple rows of his spectral swords and launched it towards the Flying Wyvern.

All of the swords hit the Wyvern both on its wings and some of the scales that exploded mid air.

The Wyvern roared in pain as it was falling towards the ground quickly.

And for some dumb reason, Darkness didn't move an inch as she waited for the Wyvern to land on her.

I ran towards her as fast as I could and tackled her out of the way.

The Wyvern fell heavily onto the ground as the explorers started to swarm and attack it.

"You know…" I said while trying to get up, "I'd hit you in the back of the head for trying to do something this stupid, but part of wonders if you'd actially enjoy it…"

"Ahhhh~" Darkness sighed in bliss, "That was a nice tackle...you should really try that more on me- Eeep!" Darkness tried to say before she shut her mouth and did a small squeal noise.

The dust around us from the wyvern hitting the ground was still blocking my vision, "Hey, you've gotten really quiet, what happened?"

"T-t-tsukiyo! D-don't look!" she stuttered as she tried to get away from me.

"Alright well there's no point in saying that 'cause I still can't see around me…so, sure?" I said while trying to sweep away the dust around me.

As the dust started to settle and I could actually see around me for once, I turned my head towards the wyvern and just like last time, I saw the explorers swarm it as they not only stabbed the wyverns face and wings, but the guy who had that very long Sephiroth like sword was attacking the tail as he leaped high in the air and did a downwards slash cutting the tail clean off the wyvern.

Seriously...these guys are a couple miles ahead of us in terms of skill, it's insane…

The wyvern got up and shook its body as it let out a weak roar and flew off in a different direction. By the looks of it, it didn't seem like the Wyvern was going to join back in the fight somewhere else so everyone guessed that the Wyvern left the town.

"Right now that that's over, I really need to knock some sense-" I said as I was about to scold Darkness only to find that a lot of her armour got destroyed.

She looked mostly the same as all the other times she had her armour destroyed, but the only difference this time was the fact that she was covering up her boobs since her black suit thing that she always wears had a good amount of tears on her chest along with some tears around her thighs as well.

"D-don't look!" She said as she got up quickly and covered my eyes with her right hand.

"Alright, alright. I get it." I said as I turned around and stopped looking at Darkness.

Vergil came up to me as he finished doing what he needed to do, "Well, that was another disappointment. Are all Wyverns like that, I wonder…" He said to himself.

"Anyways, the Explorers say that there's another Wyvern in the area, and that a couple of Explorers are already-" Vergil was cut off as a loud roar was heard from somewhere.

Compared to the Roar of the Wyvern we fought against the last 2 times, this one sounded much more throaty and violent.

"Hey, this can't be…" "It's him…" "The Elder Eater…"

A couple of the explorers said while some of them went pale.

The explorer in iron armour with the long sword spoke up, "Men! Those of the Inexperienced should best get going right now! If not, then be prepared to gamble your life. This is a battle for the Veterans!" he shouted.

I went up to the explorer in the iron suit, "Hey, what's going on? Who's the Elder Eater?" I asked him.

He turned his head as he looked at me, "Boy, it's best for you to evacuate for this one. The Elder Eater is not a dragon you want to face off against as a beginner." he said trying to warn me, "But if you really want to gamble your life then come with me. You'll see the True definition of a Destructive Force."

The man in the iron suit started to walk off towards the direction of a couple other explorers as they began to regroup and check their equipment.

I walked back to where Vergil and Darkness were.

"Darkness, we have to go back, like right now. This next Dragon doesn't seem like one you want to handle head on." I said trying to persuade her.

"We can't just leave this to the Explorers Tsukiyo! They're going to need our-" She tried to respond but I cut her off.

"Darkness. We're just gonna get in the way, we have to leave this to them. We don't have any other choice." I said.

"But we have Vergil here, he won't let us die!" she argued back.

"Correction: I won't let Tsukiyo die, but that doesn't mean I'll lend a hand and protect you as well." Vergil said seriously as he shot down Darkness' idea.

"Is there...really not much we can do?" she said sadly.

"I don't like it, You don't like it, But we need to know when to draw the line. You nearly died back when we fought Hans, I don't want to put you in that situation again. I care about you too much to even consider it." I said to her.

Darkness blushed a bit when I said that, "I-is that so…"

It seemed like Vergil has had enough of me talking to Darkness since he sighed audibly, "Let's go." He said begrudgingly as he headed towards the explorer.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"I'm going to see what this Elder Eater is. So far, the last two Wyverns I've seen were disappointing, I want to see something worth my time. So come, As long as you two stay out of the way, there should be no casualties."

"Are you sure about this, I mean this is a drag-" I was about to say before I got cut off.

"Are you doubting the ability of a Son of Sparda?" Vergil said menacingly.

"Sigh...No." I said in an annoyed tone.

"Good. Now follow closely and don't get left behind. I'll kill you in the afterlife If we die." Vergil said before he began to follow the other Explorers.

I sighed to myself once again as I followed Vergil, "Alright then, I guess we are going to see the Elder Eater…" You know, without any context this sounds strange and even with context it sounds even stranger…

"Come on, let's go." I said as I grabbed Darkness Hand and ran towards Vergil.

"Umm..Tsuki-...nevermind." Darkness said behind me.

"You say something?" I asked.

Darkness smiled brightly as she denied it.

Sigh…

I really hope we don't die…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Yes I know I'm late, but this time I have a valid excuse aside from laziness and procrastination.

1) There was the new CoD 2019 beta last week and I've been playing it from the 18th to the 22nd. 2) Work has been getting a lot more busier and it's been getting a lot harder to relax and take a rest since I'm coming home much more tired. 3) I'm somewhat not getting as motivated to write out the chapters as much as I want to and it's strange since I've really wanted to start this Monster Hunter arc for a while now.

4) Code: Vein came out and I've been playing it a lot despite dying 90 actual times.

Like I said actual valid points instead of laziness and procrastination.

Those things aside, not much else to comment about….so...yeah…

 **Questions:**

 _Oran:_

 _Will Kazuma at least get more chance to shine? As he is supposed to be a strategist, and manages to be a great one as he makes use of his party's unique specialty._

Yeah, I've been thinking about it. I would like to add Kazuma and Aqua added into this arc, but I'm not sure how. I mean yeah, Kazuma is a good strategist and he isn't a pushover either, but the world of Monster Hunter is so hard to try and fit in a-

Hold on, I think I might've gotten a good idea for Kazuma to have a place in, not sure about Aqua but a good-ish role for Kazuma.

 _JourneytotheEnd:_

 _Will Darkness learn new skills that she didn't have in Canon?_

No...but then again...she might have new equipment to use…

 _Gen2324:_

 _Turok... like the Turok: Dinosaur Hunter game?_

I'm glad someone else remembers...unless you googled it…

 _Facts:_

 _Why does the Devil Bringer of edge lord have sucky durability?_

Because he cut himself from the edge too many times...just joking, I only did it for plot and to have an excuse to punch someone in the nuts.

Fun fact, I named my Code: Vein Character 8Man/Edgelord.

 **Reviews:**

Most of the reviews are the same with Wanting Zeke to get beat up so I'll just reply with, Yes.

-RadienTensho:

Ah, Raiden. You're close, but still a bit far for Tsukiyo's new main weapon. It won't happen in this Arc, but it will happen in Vol. 5.

Note, if you think about it, it's probably not a surprise.

-Doortolight47:

Sad dino-killing noises*

-Perry (guest)

Yes, I know the Devil Bringer is much more durable than that, and yes I do know that the Yamato (and Vergil's brute force) is more than enough to hurt it/tear it off.

But just like I said above, I just wanted an excuse to Devil Bringer someone in the nuts. I mean Come On! Who wouldn't want to see someone do that?!

Note: reading back on the chapter, I did say that Tsukiyo used both of his arms and not just his Devil Bringer. I'll admit, typing out my arms instead of my devil arm or my human arm is a bit vague so I'll make sure to look out for that in the future if I ever want to do something like that again.


	58. The Extinction Dragon (MH 3)

As we continued to follow Vergil and the other explorers that was heading towards this so called, Elder Eater, the sounds of buildings and concrete getting destroyed started to get louder and louder.

Not only that, but there were also black-ish spikes that were scattered all along the walls and ground. Buildings were damn near gone save for some rubble, there were very large craters in the ground and a lot of blood traces, both human and monster.

The explorers were looking around as they continued to walk, "Oh God, it's really here…" "Part of the Town is already destroyed, Where are the Elites?" "I wonder how many of us actually stayed behind…"

"Men! Stay Calm and follow basic instincts! Don't be a hero…" The guy with the large sword said as he continued to walk ahead unnerved.

While everyone was on edge and completely cautious of this 'Elder Eater', Vergil and Darkness on the other hand were the exact opposite…

"This is getting my hopes up, might not be a waste of time after all…" Vergil said as he was completely calm but sounded a bit excited.

"I see…" Darkness said brightly while not really paying attention to anything since she's still on Cloud 9 form me holding her hand.

As we got closer to the fight what surprised me the most wasn't the aggressive roars that was sending chills down my spine, but the fact that there was not only explosions going on, but a couple of booming sounds…

It's almost as if they were gun and cannon shots being fired from the ground.

...so there might be guns in here now…

...cool. Nice to know that I'm not the 3rd person in the world who probably has a gun…

But aside from that, the fight that was going on felt very intense but at the same time, very ominous.

By the time we got to where the fight was taking place, all the explosion stopped and the battlefield was empty.

"Where is every-" Darkness wanted to say before the man with the long sword pulled both me and Darkness aside towards a somewhat broken but still intact building.

"Shh! This is a very crucial moment for us. Wait for the right time to strike." The man with the long sword said.

Behind us hiding behind the pillar and flipped over tables, were explorers that held what looked like a mixture of a crossbow and a rifle. All of them staying dead silent as they waited for some signal.

At this point, I was able to get a good look at what this 'Elder Eater' was, and it was very safe to say that the title that it was given almost fit the description.

This dragon was almost all black and had tan spikes growing from almost everywhere. From its tail, to about 80% of its body, to its mouth, even covering up the entirety of its wings with spikes. Not to mention that it had 2 horns growing from its head that looked like it could split a small house in two.

You could tell that something like this could probably be a major danger not only to humans, but to other monsters as well...

This Wyvern was the exact definition of intimidation:

While most Dragons/Wyvern's look similar to lizards and such, this one took an opposite direction. Instead of having a smoothish body and while having some kind of sleek design added towards it, its entire body was bulging with pure muscle and grit.

Everything about this Wyvern looked menacing and intimidating, honestly made me second guess why I came along.

As I looked at how horrifying this Wyvern was, part of me felt like it made direct eye contact with me for a split second. In that split second, it almost replicated the feeling of fear Vergil would sometimes give me when we trained.

"So...it's been a while...Nergigante…" The explorer in with the very long sword said as he started to unsheathed his sword.

So...that's what it's called…

...Nergigiante...

Both of us stopped eye contact the moment an explosion erupted from the face of Nergigante, taking its focus off of me and looking towards who did it.

Just about 20 feet away from it, was the same man in dark green battle armour holding up what seems to be some kind of cannon? or machine gun looking cannon?

"Oi! Sobaka!" The man in green yelled getting the attention of the Wyvern.

Nergigante turned towards the man, and lifted its entire body standing on its two hind legs giving him a loud aggressive roar.

Before it even hit the ground, Nergigante leapt in the air from its legs and jumped from its spot over towards the man in green as it was about to squash him with its right arm.

The man rolled to the side and dodged the blow, only to have Nergigante dig its fist in the ground and send pieces of concrete around its fist.

I was just about to get up and get a better view of what was going on before the long sword guy, held me down, "Not yet, the element of surprise is crucial right now…" He said as he faced towards a couple of the explorers and nodded towards them while pointing towards an open broken door.

Quietly, they backed away from the pillars and tables as they filed out the door and towards someplace else.

He turned back towards us, "We're going to set up an ambush, stay here and stay safe." he whispered.

I turned my attention back to the open area where Nergigange was still searching for the man in green. As it was searching for the man, a large dark red oversized beetle, from out of nowhere, flew towards it at a fast pace and smacked it right in its face, pissing it off.

The beetle would then glow a faint red while running off towards a random spot in a broken building right ahead of it.

Nergigante chased after the beetle and smashed its fist in the spot where the beetle fled. It made a huge mess of the building as it flailed its fist around taking apart the face if the building and the floors on it.

As the Wyvern flailed its fist in the building trying to find the beetle, two figures could be seen from the roof of the building, it was hard to tell who it was exactly but I somewhat able to make out a spear of some kind and a bow.

The person with the bow, oddily enough, looked like he was holding an arrow but not the bow while the person with the staff used the spear to life his entire body off the roof and send him above Nergigante.

His body glowed a faint red for a split second before doing a downwards spinning slash on top of Nergigante's head.

The spear made a very audible clang sound as the spear hit one of Nergigante's horns but bounced off in the end. As the figure bounced off the horn, its looked like he grabbed some part of Nergigante's face and got on it's back before he began stabbing its back/nape.

Nergigante made roars of pain as it violently shook its body and tail all along the ground and nearby destroyed buildings, trying to shake off whoever was stabbing its nape.

The figure with the arrow then decided to jump off the building and land on Nergigante's tail and started stabbing it as well, but with his arrow.

This went on for another 5 minutes before it looked like Nergigante was tiring itself out.

The man with the spear shouted something towards the other man with the bow, in a matter of seconds they did a unison attack.

The man with the spear, launched himself into the air with his spear and did a forceful downwards stab with his spear and the other man finally pulled out his bow as his body glew redder and redder and shot his arrow towards the tail.

The impact of the attack knocked Nergiganre off its balance as it got knocked towards the ground with its tail shot clean off by the bow man.

"NOW! EVERYONE ATTACK!" someone shouted as they finally gave the signal in the form of a shout and an actual signal from what sounds like a horn.

From the broken buildings all around to the large crater in the ground, a lot of explorers rushed out and started attacking Nergigante with everything they had.

From shooting their rifles/bow gun things, to firing off arrows, to getting up close and personal, they all took shots at Nergigante making it a severely unfair fight of at least 14-15 explorers to 1 Nergigante.

"Wow...look at that…" I said as I saw Nergigante get absolutely demolished from all around, "See, I told you to leave it to these guys. They're professionals, we don't need to help with this at all, right Darkness?" I told her as my hopes started to get high.

"Y-yeah...it looks like that Wyvern really is getting a...hard...beating…" Darkness said as she started to pant and get hot faced, "H-hey Tsukiyo...do you mind if-"

"Yeah, I'm not gonna agree to that." I said cutting her off.

"What?! Why? You didn't even got to hear me out!" Darkness said as she started to pout.

"Oh Darkness." I said sweetly as I patted her head, "I don't need to hear you out if I'm gonna reject a very questionable request. It is common sense after all!"

"B-but!" Darkness wanted to say before we both refocused back towards the battle from Vergil shouting towards the Wyvern.

"Is this it? Is this really the true capability of this so called 'Elder Eater?!" He said while sounding pissed, "Observing this piece of nature's trash was bad enough with predictable movement, now you're telling me that a simple tactic can make this animal damm near defenseless?!"

The Wyvern was finally able to get back on all fours as it roared and made almost everyone back away a considerable distance, except for Vergil.

"Hey! Get back this thing will kill-" The voice with the spear said, If I remember right, I think that's Cowboy.

"Quiet." Vergil said seriously, "Of all the things I've faced off against, this has to be the most disappointing creature yet, 'Elder Eater' what a joke."

Nergigante began to roar in Vergil's face before he summoned a Beowolf in his right hand and gave it a swift upwards punch to the jaw.

Nergigante staggered back a bit as it glared at Vergil, "What? Are you really hurt from such a weak slap? Pathetic…"

Nergigante didn't look like it liked the way Vergil spoke to it.

Nergigante lifted its body and stood up on its hind legs as it roared much for aggressively. One of the Hunters shouted in fear, "It's going for a dive bomb! Get to cover!"

Vergil wasn't intimidated by Nergigante's movement, so instead of rushing to cover like the rest of the explorers, he dug his sword in the ground and waited patiently for the divebomb to happen.

The tan spikes that was growing started to turn black as Nergigante lifted its body in the air and quickly dived bombed towards the group of explorers running to cover.

The divebomb shook the ground heavily as both me and Darkness lost our footing despite being a good distance away from the crash.

And it was great that we lost our footing because when Nergigante did his divebomb, all the spikes that was growing on its body got sent in almost every direction, including the broken building we were in.

From the floor to the buildings, it was similar to a shrapnel grenade with a heavy explosion.

As we got up and regained our footings, the field where the explorers fought was completely covered in dust and smoke.

It was hard to see who took cover and who was still standing, but as soon as the dust cleared, it was safe to say that whoever wasn't in cover when the divebomb happened, probably isn't alive anymore.

There were a couple of explorers on the ground who were able to stand up and grab anyone who was unconscious. There were also some that wasn't as lucky as the others.

But most surprisingly of all, Vergil still stood in the same spot, untouched and not hurt.

"We've got to help them! If we can take them to Aqua, we should be able to heal them!" Darkness said as she tried to head over.

"Hold on! It's still too dangerous, we don't even know if that Nergigante is still around." I said trying to bring in some sense.

Darkness didn't listen to what I had to say and rushed over to the explorers to try and help them.

A painful grunt was heard somewhere on the battlefield. As the dust began to completely clear out, on the right side of the field where the majority of the spikes shot out to, the man who had the very long sword laid back in pain as he had one of the spikes coming out of his left leg.

The man in green battle armour was next to him trying to drag him out of the field, but stopped doing so as he caught a glimpse of Nergigante slowly coming towards him.

The green armoured man pulled out his giant gun thing and tried to fire at it until it started to jam.

Compared to the other explorers and Darkness that was on the left side, I was the only one that was the closest towards them.

As much as I would've loved to stay in the broken building and hope that someone more experienced could go help them, I decided not to wait any longer and rush towards the guys in need.

I pulled out my Blue Rose and fired off all 3 shots towards Nergigante's face. Of course, with the very muscular and tough hide/skin it had all 3 shots bounced off.

Nergigante took its attention off them as it faced me and roared loudly.

"What are you doing Comrade?!" The man in green shouted.

"Buying time, now get him out of here!" I shouted back.

Without a second of hesitation, Nergigante tried doing some quick swipes at me.

I managed to barely dodge them. Not only am I dodging something with immense tenacity, but this is something way out of my skillzone.

"Tsukiyo! What are you doing?!" Darkness shouted as she tried to help the explorers.

"Don't worry about me, just get the explorers out of here!" I shouted back while trying to dodge all the swipes and slams.

"But-!" Darkness tried to argue.

"Just go!" I shouted back being too preoccupied to focus on her.

As I dodged the swipes, it started to get more and more aggressive. Trying to use its claws to dig at the ground, slamming its fist spreading dust and debris, and even using its horns to push me back.

I was still able to get some pot shots on with the Rose, but no matter where I aimed it, all the shots still bounced off.

As I was trying to stall for time and take its attention off the explorers, the spikes were starting to regrow and slowly turn black.

Nergigante still looked like he had a lot of fight in him as it continued to slam its fist into the ground and send spikes all around.

I tried running as far as I could to try and put some distance between us, but no matter how far I ran, it always made a huge leap towards me and slammed the ground next to me.

I could only do this for so long before I got caught in a corner of rubble.

The spikes that were growing on Nergigante's body were all black, it roared at me aggressively like it always did and lifted itself off the ground and was about to do a divebomb.

That was before something jumped in front of me though…

"Darkness?!" I said in shock.

Darkness somehow managed to get to me with what looks to be a new, sturdier chestplate with like a shield that looks big enough to cover an entire person's body.

"Hang on Tight!" she shouted as she dug the shield in the ground and braced for Nergigante's attack.

With not much of a choice, and you know, some common sense, I got behind her and also braced for the attack.

Now….I'll be honest…

I'm not sure if it was because we had a giant shield that could cover an entire body…

I'm not sure if its because the Shield and new Armour are probably tested and made to go against giant wyverns like these…

Or maybe because it was Darkness and her damn insanely high defense…

I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is the fact that we somehow managed to survive the dive bomb and not get hurt at all.

I mean we did get pushed back about 5-6 feet from where we stood, but hey we're alive and not hurt!

And that's an amazing but severely terrifying thing since this was the same divebomb that probably killed/crippled a lot of people before.

"Tsukiyo! Did you see that?! I managed to protect you!" Darkness said happily as she let go of the shield and slumped to the ground.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"I should be asking you that question, sorry it took me a while to get here. I had to borrow some equipment and armour from the explorers." Darkness said as she was panting from exhaustion.

Our moment together was short lived as we heard a couple of gunshots and shouting from behind us as we saw a couple of explorers with heavy machine gun looking things running towards Nergigante.

Behind us was none other than Turok. Thinking about it now, his figure looks a bit similar to the figure I saw before with the Cowboy.

"You two did great at stalling it." He said as he took his bow off his back and loaded it, "You guys can head back, We'll take care of things."

"Got it" I replied before turning to Darkness, "Can you stand?"

"Yeah, but taking that divebomb took a lot more out of me than I thought…" Darkness said as she stood up slowly.

Grabbing Darkness off the ground, I lent her a shoulder as we hurriedly ran away from the fight and towards the spot where some of the some of the explorers were getting healed…

...by Aqua….

"Ughhh! Come on! A Goddess like me shouldn't be here, what if get attacked…" Aqua said getting a bit paranoid from her surroundings.

"Shut up...just heal the guys so you can heal me…" Kazuma said as he was holding the back of his head.

"You guys….seriously…" Megumin said annoyedly as she held her staff tightly.

"Oh look, it's the coward who ran away and the False Goddess. Glad to see that you two are doing well…" Vergil said from behind us.

"What, did the guilt actually bring you two back?" He continued.

"No, I dragged them back with the help of a couple of Explorers." Megumin explained, "Besides, I saw what happened. You didn't help Tsukiyo at all when he was being chased around, if these guys are cowards for running away, what does that make you since you didn't even fight the dragon?"

"There's a very clear difference between not fighting for any reason and teaching Tsukiyo a lesson. Of course a mere child like you wouldn't understand…" Vergil responded confidently

"A lesson? What lesson did you teach me?" I asked Vergil out of annoyance.

"A lesson of not to chance any chances and not be a Hero." Vergil said as he walked up to me and looked down on me, "While only armed with your pistol, and no demonic power, you foolishly challenged an opponent you had no intentions of taking seriously."

"If you're Girlfriend hadn't been there to shield you, I would've stepped in to cut down the Wyvern, but it seems you got lucky this time." Vergil continued.

"And what do you think was I supposed to do? Stay in that broken building while people are getting killed out there? No, I'm not gonna stay put for a reason like that, I'd rather die trying to save someone than live and regret not saving anyone." I said trying to stand up for myself.

"...And that's not a bad reason to go out and Risk your life." A voice said from behind me.

As I turned around, I saw Cowboy bandaged up and holding his stomach, "That was quite a show you put on there, your know. Yes, it was dumb. Yes, it was reckless. But I'll be damned if it wasn't commendable."

"Commendations don't mean anything compared to a humans life. It'll only get him killed." Vergil said rejecting Cowboy's compliment.

"Yeah, but we live in a day and age where almost anything and everything can get you killed, so you can't help but want to try to at least be a better person today than what you were yesterday. Or at least, that's how I think of things, hehe...ow…" Cowboy said trying to laugh it off.

"Sigh...you remind me of my idiotic brother...sounds exaclty like something he'd say…" Vergil said as he sounded annoyed.

"Then I guess your brother must've been a pretty caring person.." Cowboy commented.

"I guess that's one way of putting it like that…" I said low enough for no one else to hear…

All of our attentions were diverted away from Vergil and Cowboy towards the battlefield where we heard a low howl of something dying before hearing a heavy thud.

"Well then, I guess that's that. Hey, you were named Tsukiyo right? Don't let your Dad get you down on this kind of stuff, there have been even worse situations that people have lived through. Ain't nothing wrong with risking your lives for someone else's." Cowboy said before heading towards the others.

"I'm not his Dad! I'm his Mentor!" Vergil angrily shouted before desummoning the Force Edge and going back to my arm.

After that, everyone who was fighting Nergigante came towards us, not only to get healed by Aqua but to also accommodate me for being bold.

"So…" Turok said as he sat right next to me, "You're pretty bold aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess I am." I said while still feeling the inner annoyance from Vergil everytime someone told me that.

"Tell me, is this your first time dealing with Wyverns/Dragons?" He asked.

"Uhh...yeah...Why?" I asked.

"Well...mainly because we're gonna need a lot of help trying to rebuild the city. With Everyone evacuated and safely away from the damages, we managed to deal with all of the threats with no casualties, but on the flipside, a good portion of the city has been leveled."

"The Baezelguese that was here managed to destroy a lot of rooftops, roads, and buildings while the Nergigante did twice as much damage." He concluded.

"Alright well, what does that have to do with me?" I asked suspicously.

"Considering that not only did you help out with Nergigante and with some of my men, how about we make a deal…" He said as he stood up and faced me.

"You help us with rebuilding the city and we give you experience and tips on how to deal with monster that go way above your pay grade. You have good instincts on what to do and how to avoid bad situations and your lady friend over there has some pretty incredible defense, so why don't we help each other out?" Turok said as he lent his hand out.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _We'll take it…_

~ ~ ~ ~

My demon armed glowed as it shot out instantly and shook Turoks hand.

"Eager now aren't we?" Turok said a bit surprised.

"That...wasn't me…" I said as I let go of his hand.

"Pardon?" Turok asked a bit confused.

"That was Vergil, you know, the white haired dude who knocked aside Nergigante with one hit…He...lives..in my arm…" I said trying to make sure Turok doesn't think I'm crazy.

"Don't worry, Us Explorers in The Guild have seen much crazier…" Turok said nonchalantly, "I'm noy sure If I told you this before, but no one in The Guild has a problem with demons, or half ones per se. We've already seen it all, so Demons are the least of our concerns…"

Turok then turned away and headed off in another direction, "Well then, I'll see you later then. I need to prepare for the expeditions…"

Before I could turn around and face my team, I was already pinned down by both Kazuma and Aqua in a fit of anger, "WHY DID YOU ACCEPT THAT REQUEST!" they both shouted.

"It wasn't me, it was Vergil." I said innocently as Ignored their complaining.

"Oh yeah?! Well Why don't you tell Vergil that he-!" Aqua was about to go off before my arm shot out and started to squeeze hard on Aqua head.

"Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow! Ok I'm sorry, please stop!" Aqua began to cry as she tried to remove my hand.

This made Vergil squeeze even harder before letting go.

"H-hey Tsukiyo-" Darkness was about to ask before I rejected her.

"No." I said

"Oh Come on! I didn't even get a chance to talk…" Darkness said as she pouted.

"Shhh. Regardless of what request you make, it'll always be no…" I said innocently.

Soon enough, the day would come to an end and the rest of the week would be dedicated to repairing the city and such.

I mean I could explain what went on as we helped rebuild the city, but it isn't all that entertaining.

Besides with all the Explorers, Adventurers, and Palico's that was helping rebuild the city, even I was surprised to see it all get rebuilt in a week.

Aside from that, with the city finally rebuilt, Turok kept his side of the promise of giving me some experience with fighting Larger Wyvern.

Everyone in the party loaded up onto one of the Airships that was ready to go, we were just about ready to go and fight more Wyverns…

..but then I remembered…

I've got really bad motion sickness when it comes to flying…

Goddamn it…

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Holy hell, thank fuck for Columbus Day.

Didn't have to go to work because of it and I could finally finish this chapter.

Don't have much to say, so let's get right into the reviews/questions…

Ok, so there aren't any questions. Cool, this makes finishing this chapter easier.

 **Reviews:**

 _-Basically everyone who commented on Aqua and Kazuma's cowardice last chapter:_

I get what you guys mean. When you've fought against beings that could probably wipe a squad of experienced adventurers multiple times, you'd think you'd get stronger and start to take things much more seriously right?

Well yes, but actually no.

The Wyverns that are about to appear in this arc are pretty high tier enemies, some not so much but most of them, definitely. I mean giving the label Dinosaur Dark Souls to Monster Hunter is pretty fitting in my opinion because all of these monsters are really relentless. They'll come at you with all they have and run away if they can't take you.

And along with the fact that their own hometown was attacked and partially destroyed is gonna strike some fear into any low level adventurer, Kazuma included.

But like I said, I get what you mean, but the World of Monster Hunter is pretty unforgiving and is a whole different game when it comes to fighting, so it's only natural for Kazuma and Aqua to run away.

But Don't worry, Aqua and Kazuma will get their due on the next couple of chapters…

...Trust me…

 _-Brandon Boodoo:_

I doubt you'll read this, but fuck it, who cares.

I'm surprised it only took you 16 chapters to realise that, good job.

 _-Kensei-1085:_

Thanks for reading my stuff.

Sorry that its taking a bit longer than usual to beef up my little boi, but you can honestly trust me when I say that at Vol. 5 he will be a lot more assertive and beefier than right now since going from giant dragons/wyverns back down to demons/people is a pretty big downgrade when it comes to fights.

There won't be as much pressure from fighting a Dragon than there is fighting a, for example, a Blitz from DMC4. Yeah both are pretty strong, but compared to a literal Dragon that eats Elder Dragons and a sparky boi, who would you rather face?

Tsukiyo for most of the story hasn't fully realised his potential, and when it came to humans or human-like monsters/demons he'd hesitate in killing it.

He won't be hesitating much longer now that he has a reason to go all out and kill things since it was to protect the one he loves, Darkness.

Like I said, thanks for reading my stuff, hope you can read more.

 _-ShadeHuntsman666:_

That might be a problem with the FanFiction notification system. If it's just 2 different emails saying the same thing then it shouldn't be a problem, but if it gets worse like the email gets corrupted/doesn't show any info then you should probably contact them for some help.

 _-Gen2324:_

Same, back when I was 5 I would always watch my Dad play it on the original Playstation.

It both scared but made me want to watch more.

Then I played the 2008 Reboot (which I'm basing my new-er characters on) and fully loved it, even if everyone who played the OG series hated it.


	59. I'm on a Boat! (MH 4)

Breath in…

Breath out….

Breath in…

Breath out…

I sat near the middle of the Airship with my legs crossed and my hands in buddist-like palm gestures.

My mind...is empty…

There is no forward motion...and no backwards motion…

I...am still…

I...am an immovable object…

I...am-

"Turbulence!" The captain shouted as he steered the ship to compensate for the Turbulence…

My focus was immediately disrupted from the turbulence, and in that 1 second of my focus being disrupted, my entire stomach started to churn badly.

Inner….peace….

I tried to concentrate as much as I could…

My stomach started to make weird noises until I started to feel bloated and uncomfortable…

It didn't take long for me to rush towards the edge and start to throw up over the edge…

...for the 3rd time…

And because I was heaving over the edge for the 3rd time, Darkness was rubbing my back as I hung over the edge.

"Oh boy, he puked again. Aqua, you owe me another 500 eris." Kazuma said as he sat at the other side of the airship with Aqua and Megumin.

"Ughh, again?" Aqua groaned as she handed him another small bag of coins, "Tsukiyo quit throwing up! I'm losing money!"

I gave Aqua the middle finger weakly as I tried to regain my strength and keep my composure.

"Ugh...this sucks…" I groaned as I spat out any remaining barf.

 _~1 hour earlier…_

"All right, we're all loaded up! Get on!" A man with a bandana and loose fitting shirt said as he walked up the airship.

"All right guys, Time to head out, let's go!" Turok said as he adjusted the bag over his shoulder.

Everyone around me formed a single line as we all walked up to get on the airship…

..well..

Everyone but me…

I was still at the back of the line pacing back and forth while sweating bullets.

"Tsukiyo, what the hell is going on? Why are you doing that?" Kazuma said as he looked at me weirdly.

"I-i get motion sick easily when it comes to ridog anything air based. I-I can't help it…" I said while slightly having a panic attack…

Seriously? You're an adventurer that defeated at least 3 Demon Generals and this is what actually scares you? Don't be such a child…

You shut up! It's not like I got this overnight and it's not like I wanted this either! Having Air Sickness seriously sucks!

And yet you getting taken away by that Wyvern last week didn't trigger it?

Because I was in shock, I got lifted more than a thousand feet in the air! Besides that part was your fault!

Your point…?

...forget it...

"Don't worry Tsukiyo, It's my first time travelling by air too! You don't have to be afraid!" Darkness said trying to cheer me up.

"It's not the thought of flying that scares me, its what my body does because we're flying that I'm scared of." I said dreading what's gonna happen in the next couple of days.

"Hey now, cheer up!" A voice said from behind as he slapped my back, "It won't be that bad!"

I looked behind me and saw Cowboy along with what looks like his Palico partner riding on top of his head. It was was a white cat with a couple of black spots over his eyes and arms.

"Oh Cowboy, thanks for the words of encouragement, but it won't do me any good, sorry…" I said as my face began to get a bit pale.

"Don't think about it too much, you know. If you do...well, I hear your body gets used to it after the 3rd day..." Cowboy said as he walked past us and towards the airship. The Palico meowed at me and waved as it continued to ride on Cowboy's head.

"Last Call! Get on or get left behind!" The guy with the bandana said as he started to walk towards the steering wheel.

"Come on! We're gonna get left behind! Move your ass!" Kazuma said as he began to shove me towards the airship.

Fuck…Fuck...Fuck...Fuck!

My breathing started to get faster the closer I got to the airship and in a matter of minutes, we were now loaded onto the ship and was ready to fly to wherever we're going…

Even though I dreaded getting on the airship, the moment I sat on something that felt solid enough to not move, I felt a bit of relief…

...Ironically enough, I was sitting near the edge of the ship.

While most of the Hunters are either inside or helping out with Airship maintenance, some were on the deck and taking in the scenery….

...and then there was me, holding on to a pole for dear life and trying not to vomit as much as I could.

Last time I was on a plane, or something air related, My class was going to the countryside for one of those exploration vacations.

At that time, I didn't know I had Air sickness, since I was able to take the Tram, the bus, and ride in a car normally, so I didn't think much about it at that time.

Man did the trip going to and returning from there sucked horribly.

4 fucking hours in a bathroom...Twice!

...Are you fucking kidding me?!

We're gonna be spending a couple of days on the air just to get to a spot for grinding levels!

If I don't die from a demon/dragon/ or whatever the fuck might kill me, then I might as well die from barfing too much!

And Yes, you can die from that, that's how paranoid I was about it back in my first year of High School…

"Hey Tsukiyo! We're gonna go check out our rooms, don't puke okay?" Kazuma said as he didn't care enough for my Air Sickness, but hey, this might be his version of Revenge for dragging him along this trip…

Kazuma and Aqua left inside the Airship with Megumin hesitantly following behind since she might've been worried for my health.

But hey, at least Darkness was here so at least 2 people actually care for my well being…

~ ~ ~ ~

 _What, I don't count? I'm actually hurt…_

Right...like you care…

 _*Chuckle*_

Holy shit, you can laugh?!

 _I'm not an emotionless being you know, despite being a half demon, I have emotions too._

Really now, You could've fooled me with the way you act.

 _...Touche._

~ ~ ~ ~

"I'll admit it, despite it being my first time Travelling by air, this is quite a view." Darkness said as she looked at the distance and soaked in all the sights.

"Even though I have air sickness, yeah, the view from here is one of a kind. You should see the sunset though, A sight like that will take your breath awa-" I stopped mid sentence as I immediately closed my mouth and tried not to heave only to fail and throw up over the edge.

This took Darkness and most of the crew members by surprise as most of them stopped what they were doing and turned their heads to check up on me.

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness exclaimed loudly as I finished barfing and went limp on the edge, "This….is why….flying…..sucks…." I said trying not to barf again…

"D-Do you need me to bring you something?! M-maybe some Tea or Medicine?" Darkness frantically asked as she didn't know what to do in this situation.

One of the crew members came to check up on my since I definitely didn't look like I was ok.

After a brief conversation with him about my Air Sickness, he suggested some breathing techniques while sitting on the middle of the ship deck. Apparently he too had Air sickness the first time he got on and when he did this, it helped a lot.

I thanked him as he left to continue onto his duties and if those methods didn't work it was probably best for me to head to my sleeping quarters and rest there.

As I wiped away some barf from my lips and spat some out of the Airship, I headed towards the middle of the ship and tried doing what the crew member suggested.

At this time, Kazuma, Aqua, and Megumin came back outside in some casual wear instead of their regular clothes.

"Uhhh…" Kazuma said as he was figuring out what I was doing.

By the sounds of it, it seems that Darkness went over to them and explained what I was doing.

"Oh...Hey Aqua, how much do you want to bet every time he pukes?" Kazuma tried to whispers, but probably said it loud enough for me on purpose.

Asshole.

"Hmmm...Let's say one every hour, if it's less than that I pay you. Deal?" Aqua said.

Fucking Bitch!

"Hey! He can hear you, you know?" Megumin said trying to stop them.

"Ok and?" Kazuma and Aqua said in unison.

Both of them can burn in Hell, I don't care anymor-

The ship began to tremble slightly along with my insides…

I breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly.

I did this for a couple of times, and to my surprise, this was actually working.

With this maybe I can actually-

 _~Present…_

Nevermind…

This trip just sucks entirely…

Fuck flying by air…

T.V and movies made it so cool...and that Joy had to be sucked right out of me because of Air sickness…

"Let's get you inside, I think you should lie down for a bit…" Darkness said as she helped me up from hanging over the edge of the ship.

"Thank...you…" I said weakly

"It's no problem, it's the least I can do." Darkness said as she smiled warmly.

After 10 minutes of walking to our resting quarters, I was surprised to see that Turok was waiting for me in my room.

My room a surprisingly small for being in an airship.

There was only one bed on the right for someone to sleep on, maybe two if they were squished together, a small desk in the left corner of the room for my clothes and other stuff, and one circle window in between the bed and desk that looked outside.

"Oh boy, don't you look alive…" He said as he got up from my bed.

"What're...you doing here?" I said as I felt a little bit better than earlier.

"I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things, but you're….not looking so great, so I'll make sure to bring it up over Lunch." He said as he left my room, "Lunch is in 5 hours, miss it and I'll guarantee there won't be any scraps…"

As Turok left, Darkness set me beside my bed as I laid myself down.

Lying down made me feel a bit better, I wasn't as nauseous as I was on the deck, but I could still feel my stomach acid slosh around and make me uncomfortable.

"Again, thanks for taking me down here. Lying down helps a lot for me." I said thanking her once again.

"It's no problem, I'll be here if you need me to do anything." Darkness said as she was about to sit down on the desk.

"You don't have to stay here until I get better you know? This is a pretty cool opportunity to look around on the deck and take in the sights." I said trying not to hold her back from going back.

"Yeah, I know but it isn't as great if your not with the party, you know? I can't help but feel a bit bad when the rest of us are enjoying the trip while your bedridden." Darkness said as she blushed a bit while explaining.

"Can't help but feel guilty huh…" I said to myself as I continued to lie down on the bed, but grab the pillow and blanket next to me.

"What are…" Darkness was about to ask before I got comfortable.

"I, am going to take a short nap, see if I can sleep off the nausea. While I sleep, you go and enjoy the view, Sound Fair?" I said as closwd my eyes and tried to sleep.

"B-but-" Darkness tried to argue before I turned away and "slept"

"Snore." I said while I turned my back.

"Tsukiyo…" Darkness said.

"Snore." I repeated myself.

"D-don't ignore me…" Darkness said as she started to pant.

"I am asleep, therefore cannot hear you. Please let me sleep in peace. Thank you very much." I said monotone-like.

"Alright, I'll leave…" Darkness said as I heard her footsteps leave the room and close the door.

As I heard the door close and footsteps leave, I laid back on my back and sighed a bit.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _What, don't like being chatty while Nauseous?_

No it's not that…

 _Then what is it? It feels like your body is slowly adapting to the ship and your a lot better now that you're lying down._

...I always feel like I'm holding Darkness back whenever she hangs close to me. I mean, I know she doesn't do this on purpose or anything, but I always feels like she has to because I'm here.

And with my Air sickness included, I had to drag her down here just to get me to feel better.

 _Sigh...stop acting like such a wimp…_

 _Whatever she does, she's doing it from her own goodwill because she cares. I'm honestly baffled that, that hasn't gone through your thick skull._

Yeah, you're probably right…

 _'Probably right' he says. Go get some sleep, I'm already tired of this conversation._

~ ~ ~ ~

I did what Vergil said and tried to sleep. It was a bit hard in the beginning since the motion sickness kept me from fully sleeping and making me lose conscious but I somehow managed to do so.

I wasn't sure how long I've slept for, but when I woke up, it was already sunset.

As I got up, I couldn't help but notice that my air sickness has gone down by a lot. I didn't have the urge to throw up multiple times and I could stand on my own two feet without getting spaghetti legged, but I was somewhat lightheaded.

I heard a light knock on the door as I sat back down on the bed.

"Tsukiyo, are you awake?" Darkness said from the other side of the door.

"Yeah, you can come in." I told her.

"Can you open the door? My hands are full at the moment." Darkness said.

I went up and opened the door, and was surprised to see that Darkness had come with a big plate of food and a mug of what looks like beer, juice, or water.

"What's all this?" I asked her as she put the food down on the desk.

"Oh, it's your portion of food that you didn't get to eat earlier." Darkness said as she sat next to me.

"How….long was I asleep?" I said cautiously.

"Hmmm...just about 7 hours, I guess…" Darkness said as she guessed.

The fuck...

"Oh, so I guess I already missed lunch then." I said. It's strange that I don't feel like I'm starving…

"Yeah, Kazuma was just about to eat the rest of the portion before Megumin brought you up. Though, I guess the chef would probably be willing to make more food for you." Darkness said as she went on.

"I guess I owe you one then." I said as I took the plate of food and started eating.

The food that I ate was surprisingly delicious. Everything was teeming with flavour and honestly made me want to eat more.

As I was about to finish eating, I couldn't help but watch Darkness as she sat on the desk and looked outside as the sunset was shining through the clouds.

"Alright let's go." I said as I put the empty plate on the desk.

Darkness was snapped out of her trance and questioned me, "Go where?"

"To the ship deck, let's go see the sunset." I told her as I opened the door.

"What about your sickness?" She asked in concern.

"As of right now, I don't feel that bad. I might feel a bit lightheaded, but that's not enough of an excuse to watch the sunset." I said as I took her hand and walked back up to the ship.

While it probably would've been a lot cooler if I did know the way to the deck, I did get lost about 2 times trying to get to the deck. Darkness laughed at me for not knowing the way and took the lead.

As we finally got to the deck, I couldn't help but notice that it was a lot emptier than before.

I mean, the captain was still there guiding the ship, and there was still someone at the crows nest keeping a lookout, but other than that there were only 3-4 people out here.

Darkness quickly walked over towards the edge of the ship and was mesmerized from the sight of the sunset.

I walked up right next to her and joined her.

"It's a great sight isn't it?" I said.

Darkness nodded as she continued to look with a smile on her face.

"It's always a good sight when your with people who care about you." Darkness said with a warm smile.

Whenever Darkness gives me a warm smile, I couldn't help but feel calm and relaxed around her.

She always made some kind of effort to be around me and I'm pretty sure she even went out of her way to do some things for me…

I guess that's why…

"Lalatina…" I said softly.

Darkness turned to me quickly and blushed as she heard me say her name.

"How about we try going out?" I said without any hesitation.

With my heart beating furiously and my resolve, finally strengthened, I finally said it.

Darkness blushed wildly as she covered her mouth with her hands from shock and started to tear up.

"Oh my...are you...are you serious?" She said as she wiped some of the tears away.

"Y-yeah, I am. sorry for taking too long to say so. I know I kept you waiting for awhi-" I was about to finish while blushing just as much as her, but got cut off when Darkness gave hugged me tightly.

"No, no. It's alright, I didn't want to force this on you and make it so you had to...it's alright." She said as she slightly sniffled.

I hugged back and sighed a breath of relief, "For a moment, I thought you'd take some kind of grudge against me for taking too long, it's a good thing you're not normal."

"Hey!" Darkness said as if she sounded offended.

"Don't worry, that's one of the main reasons I really like you!" I said as I slightly pulled away from her and wiped some tears of her eyes.

Darkness smiles at me as both of us were in each others arms having a moment together.

You know, this probably would've been a perfect time to kiss her and make this day even better…

...but then again…

"Hey, that mohawk guy is looking for you Tsukiy-" Kazuma said as he and Megumin walked up to where we were.

"...am I…?" Kazuma was about to ask.

"Yes, obviously you are. Good Job, Trash-uma." Megumin said in a dull tone as she gave Kazuma a neutral glare.

"Hey, it's not my fault that I ruined their lovers moment! I just wanted to tell Tsukiyo that one dudes message, why the hell are you blaming me? And why are you calling me Trash-uma?! I thought we talked about this!" Kazuma said as he complaining.

...aaaaand the moods ruined.

Thanks Scum-zuma.

Megumin walked past Kazuma in a slight hurry as she approached Darkness with a happy smile, "Congrats Darkness, looks like it finally happened. I'm so happy for you two!"

"Thanks Megumin." Darkness said cheerfully as she gave her a hug.

"If only the same could happen to you, if only…." I muttered to Megumin.

"Yeah….tell me about it…" Megumin said as she sounded a bit annoyed.

"I feel like you guys are talking shit about me...Could you please not, I'm standing right here." Kazuma said as he was feeling a bit left out.

"Don't worry, we just talking about how horrible of a person you are when you ran away from an emergency situation with Aqua. You guys seemed a bit close, thought about starting a new life together?" I teased Kazuma.

"Hey now, even if that's a joke, I take a lot of offense from that statement. My standards may be low, but I'm not that desperate to go after Aqua...Other than that, of course I ran away! A freaking dragon just wiped out a small portion of town! How could I not stay calm?!" Kazuma said as he began to defend his position.

"Wyvern, they're considered Wyverns." I corrected him.

"Who cares?! One literally destroyed a town and the others followed suit, how the hell do I fight that?! All I have is this shitty short sword and some basic magic, how do you expect me to even have a fighting chance?! I told you we should've just left this to..." Kazuma continued to complain.

While his points were valid for the most part, I couldn't really pay attention to him since my mind was focusing on something else…

...Something more complex and a bit terrifying…

...How do couples act?

I mean back when I was in Japan, most times I saw them, they were really lovey-dovey and attached to each other to the point of making me sick in disgust but envious at the same time.

I mean it can't be that different from what I've already seen right?

Ok, well I honestly hope not…

...I'd really suck to have my first relationship end up crashing and burning because of some stupid misunderstanding….

I'm fucking looking at you Rom-Com anime's! So much bullshit for 10 minutes of relationship screen time! What the fuck is that?!

As I continued to complain while inside my own mind/consciousness, Darkness shook my shoulder trying to get me to go back to reality.

"Hmm? What? I'm not sorry, I was too focused on other important things than listen to Kazuma. What was he saying now?" I said as I snapped back into reality.

"Tsukiyo, Kazuma already left 5 minutes ago. One of the Explorers wanted to meet with you in the training room." Darkness said as she looked a bit concerned, "You...daydream a lot don't you?"

"Don't worry, it only happens Kazuma won't shut up." I said reassuring Darkness of my remaining sanity that I still have left.

"Right, well, the explorers wanted to test out your abilities for a couple of days before letting you explore with them. We should take this time to prepare so we can fight against stronger enemies." Darkness said.

"Oh...more training...yippee…" I said tiredly as I still felt a bit sore after my last "Training session", "But you know, this might be a good opportunity for you to finally get some real training in and learn how to actually fight." I said to Darkness as I grabbed her hand and started heading inside.

"What do you mean? I think my fighting capabilities are definitely-" I hushed Darkness as I pushed one of my fingers to her lips.

"Shhh, it's alright. Regardless of fighting abilities, this won't hurt the relationship between us. I'll just make sure to-" I stopped talking as I felt my hand get squeezed with a lot of pressure.

"Oh my, Tsukiyo. What were you going to say? I couldn't quite hear you well." Darkness asked me as she had an innocent face on.

"Ok, I get it. I get it." I said silently surrendering from Darkness' strength.

Darkness weakened her grip on my hand as we now headed down to the training room.

I mean we did get lost for about 15 minutes, but after randomly walking around and soon asking someone for directions we were able to get there after 5 minutes.

Seriously how big is this airship…

Looking in to the training room was a bit strange to be honest.

Compared to a regular one that would probably have a target dummy and a couple of swords/bpws to try out, it almost looked like there was enough weapons here to give to a small army.

Bows, Broadswords, short swords, long swords, those weird hybrid bow/gun weapons, lances/spears, you name it, it was probably here.

Right next to those swords was a man in a dark colored platemail/chainmail with a couple of green dragon scales sticking out of the shoulder sort of similar to Darkness' wing thing on her regular armour.

"Well then, that took a lot longer than usual. Did you get lost?" A man with a buzzcut said as he was cleaning up what looked like a rifle.

"Sorry about that, we did. So what did Turok need from me?" I asked the man.

"Oh, yeah. He wanted to make sure you knew how to fight for when we go in hunts. No point in bringing you if you're just gonna be some deadweight." He said as he put the right back on the table, "By the way, you can call me Slade. I'm part of Turok's hunting party and the only damn person maintaining these weapons."

"Tsukiyo Nakano, this is Darkness." I said as I introduced the both of us.

"Hmpf, and I thought that my name was weird…" Slade mumbled as he sat down on a nearby chair, "Tell me, do you uh...really have a demon living in your arm? I've heard a thing or two from the people back in Axel, but thought that there was something in the water or something."

"Yeah, that's generally true. Though, I'd probably say that he's more of a mentor to me rather than a 'just a demon living in my arm', you know?" I said.

"Right…" Slade said as he laid back in his chair and sighed, "Alright, go get your weapons, we're gonna see how good you are at holding your own."

"Uhhh...small problem. I don't have my sword anymore since it got destroyed in my last fight, you guys got a donor sword I can borrow for the time being?" I asked Slade.

"Oh boy, this is not a good sign...Sure why not, Catch." Slade said as be tossed over a strange looking broadsword, "You break or lose it, you buy it. Got it?"

If I had to describe how this sword looked like I'd probably say that it reminded me of the Red Queen blade shape wise, but in terms of actual size, it sort of reminded me of a Machete.

I stepped away from Darkness for a second as I swung it around.

"So, how's it feel?" Slade asked.

"It's a bit strange. I mean compared to my old sword, it's a lot lighter and a lot shorter, almost feels fragile." I said as I tried doing a couple of Red Queen Combos with the sword.

"I'm gonna go get my armour and sword, I'll be right back." Darkness said before she hurried over to her room for her armour.

"Hey, can she really fight?" Slade asked as he saw Darkness walk off.

"Sadly, no. She can't hit anything with her broadsword, but she can tank 100% of hits that comes towards her and brush it off sometimes." I explained to Slade, "Our party is basically made up of misfitted troublemakers with zero comunication and teamwork on a normal day. A glass cannon mage, a good for nothing alcoholic healer, underleveled and asshole thief, a crusader who can't hit shit, and a half demon who can fight but always get his ass handed to him most fights."

"Huh, I'm surprised you guys lasted this long…" Slade said as he continued to watch me.

"Quick question…" Slade said as he looked towards the door to see if anyone was nearby, "Are you also a reincarnated?"

I stopped swinging my sword and looked at him in genuine surprise, "Wait…" I said.

"I guess that counts as a Yes then…" Slade said as he made a small smile.

"How long have you been…" I wanted to ask, but it seems to me that he already had the answer.

"20 years…" Slade said as he smiled gently to himself, "20 long years since I got here. Died back when I was in a war, fighting off against German soldiers in the trenches…"

"Hold on, you died back in 1917?!" I said completely surprised by his answer, good thing my history lessons held up.

"I guess so, yeah. Was in the Trench bunkers with my squadmates, trying to get at least 30 minutes of sleep. Whole thing was terrifying. One moment we could be trying to sleep on the dirt with nothing to hold but your gun, the next, you could be swarmed by the Germans tossing out mustard gas, scrambling just to get your mask on." Slade said as he recalled what happened to him in his past life, "If you're wondering how I died, it was due to some mortar fires. Holy hell was I scared shitless. I saw my friends and higher ranks disappear in a blink of an eye and turned to straight dust."

"I'm sorry that had to happen. Can't imagine how your family felt when they heard the news." I said apologising for making him remember something pretty fucked.

"Don't be. We know what we signed up for, after being in a World War for 2 years and seeing all your friends just get taken away in a snap, it was only a matter of time. Just like this job right now. After 20 years of exploring, fighting monsters, and training the fresh meat, there's still a good chance that I'll be taken away in a snap. I'm just waiting for the Son of a Bitch to appear." Slade said as he got what looked like a cigar and lit it.

"So, how about you? You look pretty young, but your companions are a bit younger. Well, save for that girl who was with you." Slade asked me.

"Oh me? Well, I died after some robbers tried to rob my house. Died putting my life on the line and trying to protect my mother from them." I said as I recalled what happened. Really hard to believe that it's only been a year ever since, "The guy in the green cape is also a reincarnated, but his death is just a lot more...how should I say this...Embarrassing?"

"Really now…?" Slade said as he took a puff of his cigar, "I guess you really are like him…"

I tilted my head in confusion from his last statement, "Just like who?" I asked.

Slade looked up and shook his head, "No one, forget what I said." He said as he put his cigar on a nearby ashtray and stood up, "Alright, let's see what you got…" He said as he picked up a shield and lance.

"Come at me! If you can land one scratch, I'll consider you good enough to join us." Slade said as he got in a battle stance.

"Are you su-" I wanted to say before Slade took the lance and almost stabbed me.

"No talking! In these Survival situations, enemies won't talk or give you a chance to think straight!" Slade shouted as he swung his lance from side to side trying to get a hit on me.

Despite the lance's size and how heavy it looked, Slade was swinging it pretty quickly and closely. I wasn't really given a chance to get in and close to the distance.

Slade swing his lance at me once again, this time I actually used my Devil Bringer to summon it's spectral arm and stop the lance from hitting me. I tossed it aside knocking Slade off his balance as I rushed in to close the distance.

I was just about to go for a downward slash until Slade used his shield with both hands and smack it towards me.

Needless to say, I got hit directly in the face.

So that sucked.

A lot.

I flew back a couple of feet as I got back up with my face feeling like I got hit with a brick wall.

"Not back, I guess that Arm is useful for a couple other things…" Slade said as he didn't grab the lance from before, but now the same sword I was using.

The only difference was that he took the sword and connected it to the shield, making the shields side pop out slightly and making it look like some kind of Axe. He also put some kind of claw/grapple looking thing on his left arm and put a cage with something bright in it on.

"The Guild has been experimenting with a lot of different equipment and weapons, you're gonna see how we take care of monster the professional way." He said as he pointed the grapple thing toward me, "Don't blink." He said as he fired the little cage at me.

I pulled out my Blue Rose and shot the cage as it was heading towards me.

Big mistake…

The moment the little cag impacted my bullets, a bright light exploded from the cage making me blind for a solid 20-30 seconds. Before my vision could get better, I heard a couple of swings being made.

I got into a defensive position and backed up a bit while I was still blind.

By the time my vision normalized, I saw Slade swinging his blade over his shoulder and soon into a downwards motion to the ground.

When the sword/axe thing hit the ground it made a shockwafe like impact that was heading towards me. Since I somehow backed myself into a corner, I couldn't escape the shockwave that was about to hit me.

I grabbed my sword and put it towards me as I braced myself for a massive impact, only for it not to happen.

"Lesson 1: Never get backed into a corner. You lucky that this thing didn't have enough range to hit you." Slade said as he crossed his arms and looked at me, "You might have good instincts for fighting enemies your size, but it all goes to shit when they're much bigger than you and do something unexpected and not prepare for it."

"Now then, let's try this again." Slade said as he deconstructed his weapon back in a normal sword and shield.

"Alright I'm back and in my...armour…" Darkness said as she saw me backed into a corner.

"Uhh…Did I miss something?" she asked.

"Nope, but you are just in time for training. Let's see if the both of you can take me on." Slade said as he got back into his battle stance.

For the next couple of hours, we fought against Slade.

Or at least tried to fight against Slade.

For the most part, we somewhat were able to keep up with Slade and sort of push him back, but whenever he got himself a new weapon to us on us, we were always caught off guard by something that he did.

Things were hard up until Slade gave Darkness a Shield and Lance.

"Of all the weapons a person can use, if they can't fight for shit, then they can at least be a support and take on the Aggro of monsters that comes towards us." Is something that he said.

Darkness didn't take this well since it was basically an insult to her abilities, or the truth if you want to say it, but regardless, she did much better with a Shield and Lance rather than her Broadsword.

With me not having a lot of defensive equipment to begin with, aside from actually using my Devil arm to block attacks, but can actually attack things, and Darkness' massively high defense but zero skill to actually attack, we were a good match to fight together since we made up for each other's faults.

"All right, I think I've seen enough for today." Slade said as he put down his Sword and Shield, "Go get some rest and tomorrow, we'll show you the kinds of monsters that you'll be fighting against."

Me and Darkness returned the equipment we borrowed and headed off to the lunch room to both eat something and soon return to our rooms.

For the next couple of hours…

...I have not been able to get a wink of shut eye.

With how today has been, with all the training, throwing up from air sickness, and taking a multiple hour nap, the only thing keeping me awake is the fact that me and Darkness are now dating.

I'm not sure if what I'm feeling is fear or excitement, but whatever this feeling is, it's keeping me from actually sleeping.

I mean I should be glad that I actually asked her and didn't get shut down, though it probably wasn't an option for her, I really hope that I don't mess things up with her.

I heard a light knock on my door as I was thinking (or freaking out) to myself.

"Tsukiyo, are you awake?" Darkness asked from the other side.

I got up and opened the door slow enough where it wouldn't creak and bother the people sleeping in the other rooms, "Yeah, I am. You need something?" I slightly whispered.

"I...couldn't sleep, you mind if I stay here for a while?" she asked.

"I guess you're in luck, I couldn't sleep either." I said as I let her in, "Probably because I've already slept enough earlier…"

As Darkness walked in and I closed the door silently, I walked over to my bed and sat there while she did the same.

As if my heart wasn't pounding already, her sitting right next to me in her nightgown made it a bit more stressful.

Neither of us could really speak up in this kind of situation, especially when we're sitting together in awkward silence. Well it was awkward until Darkness spoke up.

"Tsukiyo...did you really mean what you said earlier? About us going out?" she asked.

"Yeah, of course I am." I told her in slight confusion, "If I wasn't really serious about...you know, 'Us', then I wouldn't have said anything in the first place. Why, was that keeping you up?" I asked.

"Yeah, it was. To be honest, I can't really believe that we're actually going out, almost feel like it's too good to be true, you know? Makes me scared that if I share too much of my "Habit", you just might break it off…" She said somberly as she held her arms together.

"You won't break up with me if-" Darkness was saying as if she was about to cry, before I gave her a tight hug.

"I couldn't care less about that, Lalatina. I like you, because you're _you_. I couldn't care less about your Masochism as much as I joke about it. Trust me, something like that isn't enough to break things off between us okay?" I said as I tried to reassure her, "You've got my back as long as I got yours, right?"

I heard a couple of sniffles as she replied, "Right. Thanks, Tsukiyo."

I'll admit it, I guess I was also getting teary eyed, but it wasn't enough to actually make me cry...yet.

"It's no problem, both of us are pretty new to this 'Relationship' thing, so the best we can really do is support ourselves as best as we can, you know. I guess it isn't that different from what we're already doing." I said as I chuckled to myself a bit.

"Yeah, I guess so." Darkness said as she wiped a couple of tears away.

"You want to stay up longer and talk more, or are you good?" I asked as I pulled away from her.

"I think I'll try to sleep. I don't want to stay up too late and feel sleep deprived tomorrow." Darkness said as she stood up and headed towards the door.

I followed after her as she opened the door, "Try not to think about this Relationship too much, alright? There's no guarantee I won't, but as long as you're well and not destroying your own body too much with being the meat shield, that's good enough for me."

"Don't worry, with The Guilds new Shield and Lance, I should be okay." Darkness said as she gently held my normal hand.

"Good night Tsukiyo." Darkness said as she was about to head back to her room.

But before she left, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek before she glowed a bright red and left quickly.

For a moment, I thought my heart actually stopped when she did that.

So much shock on that one moment, I honestly stood there for solid 10 minutes asking myself 'Holy Hell I might actually be lucky…'

Alright, well…

Looks like I'm not going to get any sleep tonight.

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Man, a lot of things getting in the way of writing.

Real life problems/work, the New Modern Warfare for CoD, Need for Speed Heat coming next Friday along with Death Stranding.

I'm honestly wondering if I'm gonna be able to write enough this month…

But aside from that, sorry for being 2 weeks late this time instead of 1. I made this chapter just about 7k words, or close enough to it, so hey, compensation you know.

Got nothing else to say today. Next chapter will finally get into the meat of things hopefully.

Edit: almost forgot to add this in.

If you or a loved one is putting up a Chistmas tree or Chistmas Ornaments, tell them to TEAR THAY SHIT DOWN RIGHT NOW!

IT'S FUCKING NOVEMBER! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE PUTTING IT UP NOW?!

That is all.

Edit 2: btw, thanks for 250 Bookmarks and 200 likes, thats really fucking huge holy hell.

 **Questions:**

 _DxHologram:_

 _He has motion sickness when in flight? Tsukiyo isn't going to learn how to do air combos for long time, ain't he?_

He can do air combos, but just that he can't go on planes/airships since his body needs to adjust to the altitude. His skills and recovery ever since coming to the new world has made his body a lot more durable.

 **Reviews:**

AlfaMega20000:

That just makes chapter 69 much closer…

All jokes aside, looking at wikipedia, the last time this site was updated was back in 2009 (I think)...let that sink in…

DoortoLight47:

Aside from Tsukiyo and Darkness, Megumin is the next adult in line.

Kensei-1085:

Trust me, there will be a moment where Tsukiyo replicates the intro to DMCV.

It's too badass to not include, but with that in mind, it'll probably be a long while *coughcough*Vol. 8*coughcough* until I can add it it. I can't really add in a non-pedo van in the story without actual context. I don't want to rely on bullshit anime logic too much.

JourneyToTheEnd:

At first I did this for shits and giggles, but now I have an actual reason why, instead of 'because he's a good guy.'

It might surprise a lot of people…

RaidenTensho:

So…..Lances?

I've tried to think of a Spear Devil arm, but most ideas I had didn't fit. Mainly because Tsukiyo is a Nero rip-off, but it probably suit Kosuke since he's the Dante rip-off.

This really tempts me to make an entire Kosuke side of this story...but then again...I'm already a year and a half into this and I'm only halfway done with the story…

Captain Petey:

Thanks for reading, hope you can enjoy the rest of it and hopefully the end of it.

DannyRockOn122:

Thanks Bro.

FruitsPunchSamurai-987:

If you were to compare a demon from DMC to a monster from Monster Hunter, you'd fear the monster more than the demon. That's the mentality the people from The Guild have.

Blitz and Fury from DMC 4 and 5 are nothing compared to a Tempered Monster (basically a Monster on full Devil Trigger 24/7.)


	60. I don't have a title idea (MH 5)

For the past 2-3 days on this Airship, the party has been mostly...busy with something to learn until we actually get to the new world the explorers keep mentioning.

The captain of the ship told us that if we were gonna head towards the new world with us, for the next week, we'd need to be up to speed and at 110% for each day if we wanted to survive.

With those words, we all decided (All of us excluding Aqua, who we had to force) to take on some kind of role that'll help, not only us in the long run, but others when we go back to Axel.

Me and Darkness continued to learn about survivability and equipment training from Slade, Megumin and Aqua learned how to make potions out of Herbs and Honey from Cowboy, and Alexi, the man in Green armour who gives himself the name 'Tachanka', is teaching Kazuma all about the Monsters and the Ecology of each place they're gonna visit.

Kazuma definitely got the short end of the stick since he claimed to be the leader of the party and the "Master Tactician" as well.

I can believe the Tactician part for the most part, but he really isn't much of a leader. Even If he was, he'd be a really shitty one.

I mean, he sort of tried abandoning me, Darkness, and Megumin when it came to saving the town from wyverns…

Anyways, for the past couple days of Slade training us in learning wyvern patterns/habits, we also tried out some of the equipment that the Explorers would normally use for their hunts.

The Slinger, would be one of those equipment we tried to use. It was basically a wrist-mounted slingshot that could be used to throw rocks and other things that could be loaded in.

It was pretty cool actually using one of these, but I guess I was the only one who actually could...

Darkness, on the other hand, didn't have as much luck when it came to using it.

Just like her swordsmanship, she has trash aim.

Even at 5 feet, she can't hit shit.

It's getting to a point where her trash aim and swordsmanship is starting to get a bit sad…

But hey, at least she has the Lance and Shield to use when me and other explorers are actually doing damage.

But in all seriousness, she really is good with a Lance, I'm not even sure if its because of her infinitely strong defense but she can basically tank an entire barrel of gunpowder that was set to charge.

I would know because we literally tested it out in the airship!

I'm surprised that the airship's still flying with no serious damage, but damn did things get crazy.

Other than that, with her new Shield addition, she did learn a new skill that came with her Shield;

 _\- Absolute Defense: Brace yourself with the Full Body Shield as you block/deflect attacks that would normally severely injure a person/party._

In hindsight, while this sort of does nothing new for her, this does give me some kind of relief knowing that she has a skill that won't let he get too hurt…

...but then again, chances are she'll pretend to forget about it just to get the thrill of getting hurt...

Relationship wise….

I'm...not entirely sure about…

I mean we do hang out a lot together when we're alone, but aside from that, nothing's really changed around us.

I mean this is coming from my perspective, so while I don't really feel much of a difference, Darkness on the other hand looks a lot brighter and more cheerful than before.

I mean she even waited for me in the canteen (Lunch Room), just to eat together before everyone else from the party showed up.

That's probably normal for couples to do when they're together, right?

I mean I really wouldn't know to be honest…

Other than that, aside from learning new things, like the fact that I can use my Devil Arm as an actual shield, and the fact that our new equipment makes fighting a bit easier, things should go pretty smoothly for when we actually go to fight monsters tomorrow.

As Slade got off his battle stance and cracked his neck a couple of times, he put his Sword and Shield away and sat down on a nearby chair.

"Alright, I think this is good enough…" He said as he started to unstrap his slinger, "You guys should be good enough for the trip tomorrow…"

Me and Darkness got off our battle stance as we put the equipment back where we found them and thanked him for training us.

"No need to thank me, Thank Turok. This was his decision, a strange one but his nonetheless." Slade said as he lit a cigar.

"What do you mean by strange?" Darkness asked.

Slade looked up from where he sat, as he blew out smoke, "You guys might have known him for a couple of days, but in my 10 years of putting up with him and his bullshit, he's never taken in a student or trainee with us to go out on a hunt. He'll either send them away or point them over to the recruiter to be trained. It was never me or him…"

"Wonder what made him change his mind…" he said.

"Maybe he saw potential in Tsukiyo?" Darkness guessed.

"Everyone got potential, it doesn't matter who as long as they're willing to put in the work to bring it out." Slade said as he shot down the idea, "Did you do anything stupid right in front of him?"

"Well….I guess you can call it both stupid and brave…" I said as I scratched the back of my head, " Back when we were still on Axel, I did draw the attention of a Nergigante away from a couple of explorers who were about to die. Wouldn't been as stupid if I didn't run myself into a corner…"

Slade blew out more smoke as he heard my story, "Ah...So that's why…" he said grimly as he breathed out deeply.

"Is something wrong?" Darkness asked.

Slade sat up straight as he put his cigar in an ashtray as he faced me and Darkness, "Look, in my years of being a Monster Hunter, the last thing you want to do is be Brave and Stupid." Slade said as he started to look a lot more serious.

"Just like that damn idiot…" he said, remembering something.

Slade looked like he wanted to say more before he decided against the idea, "We're done here, go rest up for tomorrow. You'll be heading out to the Wasteland to see how well you guys do against a Tier 1. Now get out of my face."

"Thank you for training us, we'll make sure to put the training you gave us to good use." Darkness said optimistically.

"Just so you know, you really shouldn't expect a lot tomorrow, this is for your own understanding." I said bringing down the entire mood.

"Whether or not you do well tomorrow is entirely up to you, I've already done my job." Slade said as he pulled out a jar, some very small thorns, and what looks to be handmade shells for a shotgun, "Cowboy and Alexi are gonna join you guys just in case, so make sure to wake up and be at 110% or don't come at all."

"You got it." "Roger!" Me and Darkness said to him.

"Good. Now get out." Slade said as he kicked both of out.

Darkness looked bright and excited as we headed towards the lunchroom, "Kyaa~ This is so exciting! We're going to a new area to fight actual Monsters! I wonder how strong some of them are…" Darkness said before she started to pant slightly.

"All we have to do is hope that we don't get eaten, not sure how safe Aqua and Kazuma will be as we do this though…" I said sort of hoping that what I'm thinking doesn't come true.

"Don't worry. With my new equipment and new weapons, this should be easier than what we've gone up against. If things get really bad, don't hesitate to use me as a shield! I'll gladly take any attack to defend my comrades!" Darkness said as she started to get too excited.

"Ok, down girl. No need to go that far just yet…" I said to her, "Since your defense is high enough and you actually have a shield this time, I don't think you'll be getting as hurt as you normally do in this hunt."

"Actually I was thinking of not bringing the shield with me, it seems pointless." She said in a serious tone.

"What?" I said as me and her stopped walking.

"Is there a problem?" She asked innocently.

Ahhh! Why did I not, not expect this…

"Lalatina, we just did 3 days or actual training to make sure we do this hunt properly, and you trained with that Shield and Lance just to- You know what, nevermind, logic never seems to work in this situation…" I said stopping myself from saying anything else.

"U-um...are you…?" Darkness was going to ask me.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Let's just use Aqua as bait again to make this easier…" I said giving up all kinds of hope for normalcy.

"Aww...why her?" Darkness said as she pouted.

Darkness, I love you, but please just stop talking…

As we continued to walk towards the Lunch room, it seems that Kazuma, Megumin, and Aqua had beaten us there.

Kazuma looked dead on the outside as he mumbled a couple of words to himself as Megumin is sort of trying to help him.

Aqua on the other hand is sniffling lightly as goes from table to table cleaning up after the Explorers.

"Anjanath...water….Jyuratodus...fish….fire…" He mumbled as if he was a Zombie.

"Is he going to be ok?" Darkness asked Megumin as she took a seat across from her.

"I don't know, aside from his grunts and moans he doesn't say anything else. He's just repeating what he's been told." Megumin said as she patted Kazuma head out of pity.

"Baezelguese...bomb pods….explosions...thunder…" he continued.

"Explosions?! What about the Explosions?" Megumin asked in excitement.

"Kazuma...buddy? Are you okay?" I said to him gently as I tried not to trigger any epis-

"AHHH! WHY DID YOU BRING US ALONG!?" He said angrily as he grabbed my shoulders and violently shook me.

Well, so much for trying not to trigger an episode!

"We could've been fine! I could be at home drinking warm water for tea and having a safe day for my health, instead of going halfway across the continent just to fight some stupid dinosaurs!" Kazuma shouted.

"You just had to open your big mouth! You just had to be a good guy and help out in a situation where we can easily die! Are you brain dead just like the rest of them!? Where did all your common sense go?!" He continued.

Megumin and Darkness used almost all their strength to get Kazuma off of me as his anger started to get him to foam in the mouth.

"Kazuma, 2 things; 1) Take some breathmints, or at least make them, 2) Why the fuck are you complaining? You're not even gonna fight them!" I said trying to explain it.

Kazuma stopped foaming in the mouth as he heard me say that, "I'm...not gonna fight them?" He said as his anger instantly disappeared and got replaced with Joy.

"Of course you're not gonna fight them Kazuma…" Megumin said in a cheerful way.

"...You're way too low level to fight them, you'd be even more useless than Aq-" I said snarkily to him until he tossed a wooden spoon at me.

"Shut up! I'm much more useful than that Bitch!" Kazuma angrily said.

I wonder about that sometimes…

"At least I didn't turn an entire broth of soup into water earlier!" Kazuma said loud enough for Aqua to hear.

"I said I was sorry already! Stop rubbing it in my face!" Aqua sobbed as she continued to mop the floor furiously.

"Uhh...context?" I asked.

"Aqua tried to steal a taste of today's dinner but forgot that everything she touches get purified. So she's not allowed to eat anything until she cleans the entire room." Megumin brought up.

I smiled to myself evilly, "Give me 5 minutes, I want to be a dick…" I said as I chuckled to myself.

I went over to the Muscular Cat Chef and ordered a hefty amount of food, probably enough for 3 people.

As the Chef placed in my order and made it, it's little cat companions brought it over to the table where the party was sitting at.

"Tsukiyo, don't you think this is-" Megumin tried to speak up before I shoved a chicken leg on her mouth, "Just eat, I already paid for this." I said to her. Megumin's eyes lit up as she began to devour the chicken.

"Ahh! Now this is a feast for a party!" I said loud enough for Aqua, "Come on guys, Megumins already eating."

I subtly turned my head to Aqua and saw her fuming as she was about to stomp over to us.

"Tsukiyo, you-" Aqua said as she grinded her teeth and walked towards us.

"Hisss~" A Palico hissed at Aqua as it pointed towards the floor and for her to turn back.

"But-!" Aqua tried to argue before the Palico hissed again.

Ahh...Now this is some damn good payback….

Darkness began to pant and hold my hands as she had a blissful smile on, "T-Tsukiyo, the way you made Aqua suffer from Jealousy out of spite…! D-do you think you could-"

"No." I said immediately shutting down her idea.

"Ahn~! You're the best Tsukiyo!" Darkness said.

"Man, you guys are an….interesting Party…" Cowboy said as he took a seat near us.

"You guys busy? I thought it'd be a good idea to show you where we're heading and what we'll be hunting." Cowboy then began to bring what looks like a map and a small but slightly thick notebook/journal.

Cowboy then began to open up the map and spread it out on the table, "I'm not sure if Slade told you this already, but we'll be heading over to Wasteland tomorrow with Alexi."

(I recommend you guys to look up 'MHW Wildspire Waste map' on google and follow along, it makes a couple things easier to show/explain. Make sure it's the full map. -Konran.)

"This is a small area of the Wasteland that has the most amount of activity happening. Since we don't want to let all of the wildlife know that we're coming, we're gonna head off the ship a ways away from where the first camp is, which is in Area 1. The walk to the first camp is 30 minutes by foot, so we'll make sure to take a small rest when we get there."

"After we get to the First camp, we're gonna head over to Area's 4 and 9 to look for Barroth Tracks. Kazuma, tell them about a Barroth." Cowboy said as he opened up the small journal.

"A Barroth is a brute Monster covered in rock and mud that charges at people as it attacks." Kazuma said robotic like.

"C-Charges at people?!" Darkness said excitedly.

I covered Darkness' mouth to make sure she didn't say anything else.

"Exactly, a pretty simple Monster for beginner explorers. Since the Barroth is weak to water and fire, we'll have Alexi use some Water shots to take off all its mud, you guys will do the rest and take it down.

"It's usual rest area would be in the lower part of 9, but chances are it might be wandering around somewhere. One thing you might want to watch out for is Area 10, it's the home of an amphibious monster by the name of Jyuratodus. While it might not be one of our targets, it may attack us if it sees us, so keep that in mind.

"If for some reason that the Barroth isn't in Area's 4 and 9, we'll have to move up to Area 7 and possibly split up into 2 groups to cover more ground. One group will go up to Area 8 and another will go into Area 5. If we still can't find the Barioth, we'll regroup back into 6.

"Another warning, whichever group goes into Area 8, under no circumstances whatsoever, do not alarm the Noios' there. Don't fight them and don't get close to them, just keep your distance."

"What are Noios?" I asked Cowboy.

"If I remember right, Noios are dinosaur bird looking things that scream loudly when they're attacked." Kazuma answered.

"Exactly, the noise will attract a Diablos, and we won't have the right equipment to fight one." Cowboy said as he took out what looks to be a gold flare gun and a small reddish looking ball, "If worse comes to worse, shoot this flare in the air. We'll see it and come to help." Cowboy said ending it off with that.

"Any questions?" He asked.

None of us raised our hands and understood everything that he told us.

"Good, now go prepare and rest up for tomorrow. It'll be a long walk before we can actually get started with the hunt." He said as he left us to each other.

I uncovered my hand from Darkness hand and sighed as I laid on the table.

"What's wrong Tsukiyo?" Megumin asked as he ate her chicken.

"I'm worried for tomorrow…" I said in a tired voice, "I know something gonna go wrong tomorrow…"

"Ah. There's the Tsukiyo I know…" Kazuma said with a sigh of relief, "But Tsukiyo is right, we can prepare as much as we can, but there will be something or someone that will ruin all of that for us…"

"I think you guys are overthinking this, Chances are we might go through this with flying colors. Come on, don't be so negative." Darkness said trying to bring up the mood.

"Darkness, I really love the way you can stay so positive, I really wonder how you can stay like that sometimes…" I said to her with innocence.

"Yeah, that's true. Her positivity is a wonder sometimes…" Kazuma joined in.

"Tsukiyo? Kazuma? Why are you guys…" Darkness wanted to ask something before Megumin cut her off.

"Here Darkness, let's just eat! There's no need to think about tomorrow just yet, just eat." Megumin said as she continued to eat.

Without any context, you could say that we were all getting along very well with smiles and laughter filling up the area around us…

….in reality me and Kazuma were silently screaming and terrified for what was going to happen to us, especially with Monsters that could easily wipe out entire party's in an instant…

Now the only thing left we needed to worry about is not How fucked up the 'Fuck up' is going to be, but _Who_ was going to cause the 'Fuck Up'…

You wanna take a guess?

 _~The Next Day…_

It's...hot…

Like really...hot…

Right now, we're walking all the way from where part of the Airship landed with a cart, to the first camp…

And we're walking in the middle of Bufu fucking Egypt…

It's hot and there's just sand everywhere…

"Tsukiyo…." Kazuma said as if he was dying, "I fucking….hate you!"

"Yeah...well….Sure...why the hell...not…" I said all sweaty and too tired to retort back to him.

I hate myself too for buying into this. All the training and learning we did for the past 2-3 days better be worth it…

Surprisingly, Darkness didn't look like she was tired at all, especially when she's carrying Megumin on her back.

Aqua, being Aqua, was sitting on top of the cart with Alexi's palico, Boris, that the 2-legged buffalo was hauling.

"We are another 10 minutes away from first camp. Keep going, comrades." Alexi, or Tachanka, said as he continued to walk.

These people are seriously something else if they can survive this heat, while hiking in their full hunting gear, weapons included.

As I took the last sip of my canteen, I had this strange feeling that I was hallucinating and that I was all alone as I walked towards...something…

I don't even know where I was walking to anymore, everything looks the same…

Wait...I think I see something…

I really want to hope that those rock formations and tent aren't fake…

I might actually cry if they aren't…

"Alright, tents are just up ahead, we'll rest there for a moment and start the hunt." Cowboy said as he appeared out of nowhere along with everyone else.

Holy shit, I think I actually tripped out from the heat…

"Ahhh...about time, I feel like I'm melting…" Aqua complained from on top of the cart.

Man I can't help but want to strangle her…

After getting to the tent, resting up, and refilling some canteens, everyone here listened to Cowboy as he retold us our objective.

"Alright, remember, We're only after the Barroth, if things get bad, flare up, and hold out. If we do that, I'm sure we can do this by the end of the day." Cowboy said as he got his staff/pole thing and...oversized beetle, ready for battle.

Oh boy...here we go…

"Cowboy, Please…" I said as I put my hand on his shoulder, "Don't. Don't give us any hope. I know this group all too well, nothing will go right…"

Cowboy looked at me with a strange look, "Come on. They can't be that bad. Have a bit more faith in your teammates." He said while staying positive.

"Hahaha. **No**. I've tried doing that too many times, not anymore Cowboy. Not anymore." I said to him as I left and began to check my equipment for the trip.

...and before I did that, I did see that Darkness did stick to her guns and only brought her lance…

She looked over to where I was and saw me looking at her slightly disappointingly. She waved to me a bit nervously before walking away quickly.

God we're so fucked…

 _~20 minutes later_

"AHHH!" Aqua screamed as she got chased around getting chased by some 2 legged buffalo looking monsters.

"Yeah, I expected this much…" I said grimly as we're already having trouble with trying to get to the actual monster.

"I just wanted to feed them! What's wrong with that!?" Aqua shouted in terror as she continued to run.

"Aqua! Come over to me!" Darkness said bravely, "I can protect you from those animals!"

"With what?! You only have a lance!" Aqua shouted back, "Kazuma! Tsukiyo! Get them off me!"

"Ughhh! Fine!" Kazuma said as he took out his short sword and began to chase after Aqua, "Aqua! Bring them over here! Stop running away from me!"

Ah, yes...the familiar sound of our team actually trying to do something productive...

"So...you aren't gonna help them?" Cowboy asked me.

"No. Let this be a reminder to never have hope, especially when it comes to this party…" I told Cowboy as I began to stare out into the distance in sad realization…

Cowboy sighed for a moment, "Man, why do you have to be such a downer…" He then began to load up a flashpod and aim it towards Kazuma and Aqua's direction.

He shot the slinger over there, and made every creature, Aqua included, blind.

"AHHHH! My Eyes!" Aqua shouted.

Kazuma then walked up to her, grabbed her by her shirt collar, and started to drag her over towards us.

"Huh?! Uh! AHH! Help! It's got me! Get this animal off of me!" Aqua shouted as she began to freak out thinking one of the animals got her.

"Shut up, you Useless Alcoholic Goddess! Stop freaking out!" Kazuma shouted at her as he smacked her on the head with the butt of his sword.

By the time he got her back to us, Aqua's eyesight normalized and the group began to get back on track on our patrol….or at least start it…

"Alright, small change of plans. Aqua, you stay in the back and don't do anything." Cowboy said to her carefully, "Don't feed the wildlife and….hold onto Boris. Easy, right?"

Boris, Alexi's dark grey palico, ran up to Aqua and jumped into her arms as it got comfortable.

"Alright, let us continue." Alexi said already sounding like he's tired of our party's shit.

Me too Alexi, me too.

As we continued to walk in this wasteland, I saw Cowboy look at some plants nearby and take some with us.

"What're those for?" Megumin asked.

"Little known fact about us Explorers, when we say we use everything in Nature, we mean it. Our Armour, weapons, ammunition, potions, and repellents are all nature made." He explained as he showed her what he picked up, "Right now, I'm collecting some Flame Herbs. These supply most of Alexi's Munitions, and if we really wanted to, we could mix it in with a bunch of gunpowder and make a barrel bomb. It'll make a pretty large explosion, though."

Megumin's eyes lit up as soon as she heard explosion, "Explosion?! Really?" she asked excitedly.

"Yeah! If we down a monster, we could show-" Cowboy was about to tell her something before she interrupted him.

"I can cast explosion magic! Can I do the honours?" She asked him.

Oh no.

"No thanks, I want to stay intact this time when you cast the explosion." Kazuma said as he shot down the idea.

"Oh come on, you over exaggerating. Tell you what, we'll let you do you the honours when we get there." Cowboy said ignoring Kazuma's rejection.

"Am I seriously the only sane person here?!" Kazuma shouted in anger, "Tsukiyo, please! Warn him about what will happen!"

"There's no point in talking Kazuma, we can only let him observe. Observe and understand why…" I told Kazuma.

As we continued to walk down the wasteland, we were met with an unexpected river.

Alexi knelt down to what looks like some kind of marking, like something was dragging itself on the ground.

"Ugh...Cyka…" he grumbled under his breath.

"Something wrong?" I asked him.

"Fish. Very large fish. Was here earlier. Keep watch." He said as he readied his big bowgun thing.

"Alright, we're gonna cross the river. Don't let the water levels fool you, it looks shallow right now, but it gets pretty deep on the middle, don't lose your footing and watch out for the fish." Cowboy said as he followed Alexi.

"Kazuma, I don't know how deep the water is, so carry me and my staff. Thanks." Megumin said as she began to mount Kazuma before getting his approval (Some of y'all are thinking about the dirty in that sentence. Stop it. Get some help. -Ghandi probably.)

"What the hell?! I'm not some kind of servant you know!" Kazuma said as he complained.

"My oh my, Kazuma. You should be honoured to see that a girl wants you to carry her, men would pay good money to have that happen to them." Megumin said trying to persuade him.

"Yeah, beautiful women. Not Children- Owowowowow! Hey! Don't pull on my cape!" Kazuma retorted before having Megumin choke him out.

"Who's a child?!" Megumin said as she gritted her teeth and started to choke him harder.

Oh Megumin...I Salute you in your never ending battle…

As we began to cross the river, which was very very blue, very nice and see through, I couldn't help but notice a couple of splashes happening towards the far right of us.

Alexi, did say that there was some large fish here, so I guess that's expect-

"Ahhh! Get Away!" Aqua began to shout and panic again.

Oh for fucks sake, what no-

HOLY SHIT!

As Aqua began to splash around and panic, while holding Boris, she was being chased around by some actually large fish, and no I'm not talking about fish that are sort of large, I'm talking 'they could swallow your head whole' kind of Size!

"Piranhas! It's Piranhas!" She shouted, "I'm the Goddess of the Ocean! Why are you trying to eat me!?"

"Oh come on! Not again!" Kazuma complained.

Since Darkness was the closest one to Aqua, she decided to head to her as fast as possible.

"Darkness help! Shield me with your body!" Aqua shouted as he got behind Darkness.

"Hey! Don't bring them over to her!" I shouted as I pulled out my revolver and started to shoot at some of the fish as I got closer to her.

"Don't worry Tsukiyo! Enemies like these aren't enough to take me do- OOF!" Darkness said as she got completely bodied by all the fish.

"Darkness!" Megumin shouted as she got off of Kazuma's back and started to head towards Darkness.

"Ahahahahahaha! S-stop! That tickles! Hahahahaaha!" Darkness laughed uncontrollably.

As of right now, Me and Megumin were actually doing something to help Darkness as Aqua ran away while Kazuma, Cowboy, and Alexi probably looked at us in disappointment.

With most of the Piranha looking fish out of the way, we somewhat managed to get Darkness back on her feet while half of her armour was already completely scratched up or chipped.

"Are you alright?" I asked her.

"Yeah, Thanks for saving guys. I'm not sure I would've lasted another minute before busting my gut." Darkness said happily.

"Alright, well as long as you're not hurt." I said as I smiled back.

"Ahhh...so is this what they call a couples moment, must be nice…" Megumin said monotonically.

"Don't worry Megumin, you still have a couple more chances...if they haven't been wasted already…" I said as I tried to bring up her mood.

"Don't worry, I'm strong-willed…" She said as she tried to play it off cooly.

"Are you guys done? I want to get this day over with…" Kazuma said loudly to us.

Megumin pouted as she looked away from Kazuma, "Tsukiyo, carry me. I'm already carrying my staff and in a bad mood."

"Sure, why not." I said as I knelt down and let Megumin on my back.

I looked over to where Kazuma was and saw that his expression was still the same. But he did look away as he began to cross the river with Alexi and Cowboy.

After we crossed the river, we continued our planned path to find the Barroth up up until we found a split in the path.

"Alright," Cowboy said as he looked at us, "We're going to be splitting up here, who's going with who?"

"I'm staying with Tsukiyo." Darkness said as she stepped next to me.

"Yeah me too." Megumin unexpectedly said.

"Alright, well, that's 3 already. Think you can handle going on your own?" Cowboy asked me.

I chuckled sadly to myself, "Ugh...I hope we can…"

"Alright then, you two. You're with us, come on." Cowboy said as he began to walk the other direction with Kazuma and Aqua.

"Are you sure you don't want to walk with Kazuma? That might've been your chance to make up." I asked Megumin.

Megumin looked away as she began to walk to the other direction, "Nope. I'm still not in a good mood."

Man, I'd hate to be in Kazuma's shoes right now…

As we continued to move to our side of the split path and up a hill, we soon heard a couple of faint thumps coming from ahead of us.

As we looked over the hill, we spotted what looked to be some kind of rock looking monster walking on its 2 hind legs like a T-rex roaming a small sand hill with rock pillars.

It weirdly reminded me of some kind of train.

"Tsukiyo, is that it?" Darkness asked me.

"I….think so…" I said as I tried to remember what Kazuma told us yesterday.

He did say that what we were looking for was a monster rock monster covered in mud, and what we're seeing is basically that...

"Alright, I'm gonna send a flare out. You guys stay-"

"I want to blow it up." Megumin said as he interrupted me.

"No." I told her sternly, "As much as I want to get this over with already, I don't want to be caught in the blast."

"But I want to release my load!" Megumin said in anticipation.

"Phrasing Megumin! Learn to get better phrasing!" I told as I tried to drag her down.

"Darkness already left." Megumin said as she didn't resist me pulling her down.

"Wait wha-"

I heard a loud roar that almost sounded like a train whistle ahead of us.

But it hasn't been 5 minutes….

"Tsukiyo! What are you waiting for!?" Darkness said as she faced the Barroth that charged at her.

Goddamn it! What did I just say!?


	61. Fighting a Monster Darkness (MH 6)

The rock looking monster that was staring down Darkness was staring he down and priming its back feet as if it was some kind of Bull, while Darkness stared it down with nothing other than a lance and a lot of questionable thoughts.

Both of them looked like they were waiting for someone to make the first move, someone to make that move and go off from that.

Now where was I during all of this?

On the sidelines because part of me wanted to smack Darkness in the back of the head for going off on her own to take on a rocky boi…

...but then again, that's probably what she wants from me anyways because hey! Even if I don't do that, she'll enjoy the rejection of not getting a punishment…

Shit, she's got me in a stalemate right now…

Either way, I was out of the way with Megumin on the side, even though I should be y'know, literally right next to Darkness since she can't hit shit, but oddly enough I didn't feel like helping her in that moment.

Oh Tsukiyo, but how could you?!

This is your newly acquired girlfriend we're talking about! You're should be at her side so she doesn't get hurt!

Hahaha! Oh little Billy listen here!

Darkness, my girlfriend, is a slightly taller than me literal fucking brick wall that has a microscoptic percentage of actually getting hurt and sad, that's being compared to her 99.9% chance of getting aroused and enjoy the pain.

By not helping her, I'm probably doing her a favour and probably then some just so she can enjoy herself…

...and myself a little bit on the inside…

...hold on, am I starting to be a Sadist to her?

Ah shit…

I was snapped out of my thought process as I saw the rock monster shout at it and start to charge at her.

But...the charge at her was...pretty slow to be honest.

I mean yeah, if you were to charge at someone you'd go at probably full speed, but at the speed the Barroth was going it was actually pretty slow.

"Here it comes!" Darkness shouted excitedly.

She continued to look at the Barroth excitedly as it somewhat slowly rushed at her with full force.

Unexpectedly though, I was fast enough to drag her out the way for the Barroth to nearly miss us.

The Barroth charge that slowly flew past us went head first into a rock wall as it hit it hard.

"Aw! Tsukiyo! Why'd you do that?" Darkness pouted sadly as she looked at me with a sad expression.

"Oh you know, just out here to ruin your fun. No other reason." I said to her as was acting innocent, "But other than that, we still have to kill this thing. And you're uh….not really suited for killing things…"

"Ugh…I should be offended at that, but I guess I don't really mind that coming from you…" Darkness said as she started to pant a bit, "I guess I'm okay with being called useless by you…"

"Hey now, compared to Aqua, at least you can actually do things sort of normal for the most part." I said as I unsheathed the sword from my back.

"Hey, what do you mean for the most part?" Darkness said as she gave me a small glare.

"Eyes up, it's coming back around for us!" I said ignoring her question.

The Barroth that ran headfirst into a rocky wall was now facing us as it breathed heavily and glared at us.

It began to put its head down as it tried to go full force toward us.

I was just about to sidestep the Barroth once again, but I was pretty surprised to see that instead of it having it run past me, it stopped right in front of me and tried slamming its head on me.

I stepped back and nearly caught pounded from the Barroth as it slammed his head.

I tried to go for an upper slash to see if I do some kind of damage only to find my sword bounce off its body. Same results happened when I also tried to go for a knock-off Stinger move.

"A charging monster with rock hard defenses. I think we might've found your match Darkness." Megumin said from the sidelines.

"I-I'm not rock hard!" Darkness complained.

"But you do have abs though." Megumin added in.

"Wait you have abs?" I asked, actually curious about Darkness' abs.

Darkness covered her stomach in embarrassment, "N-No, I don't!"

The Barroth roared at us once again as it began to violently shake its body from side to side. As it did that, balls of mud and slime was getting everywhere within 10 feet of the Barroth.

Megumin surprisingly got caught in the crossfire as a she got hit in the head with mud.

While it was shaking its body, I wanted to try and get in close to the Barroth and see if there was any spot that I could've stabbed it.

But while I was trying to get closer, the mud that was getting tossed around started to mix in with the sand and make me slip.

I fell back trying to get closer to the Barroth only to slip and be vulnerable.

The Barroth stopped shaking its body and began to charge at me once again.

I somehow struggled more than I thought I would be and nearly got plowed by the Barroth until Darkness used the lance to stop the Barroth.

The Barroth slowed down and stopped right in front of me. It tried to use its mouth to take some bites out of me.

I crawled back from where I was and pulled out my pistol, trying to get some pot shots in.

Two of my shots landed in the tongue of the monster since it was trying to munch at me while the 3rd shot landed on its eye, Making it roar loudly and start to flail its head from side to side trying to hit anything in its way.

I got back on my feet and thanked Darkness as the Barroth flailed around.

What to do now…

Rock hard defenses for its body, charges and uses mud to attack, most attacks bounce off of it.

I'm not really suited to fight this thing either...

"Tsukiyo, I think I have an idea." Darkness said as she took her lance with two hands, "Let me push it back!"

Darkness began to run at the Barroth with her Lance raised up. She, surprisingly, hit the Barroth dead center in its throat and tried to push it back.

The Barroth began to reach its stubby front arms towards Darkness, while I took this opportunity to run up to it and see if there was a place I can slash at.

Since its left eye was shot out, I was able to get really close to it and see its underbody. There was no rocky area under it but it did have some kind of tough skin.

After taking a small moment to see if there was a weakspot, I just said Fuck it and started slashing around the legs to see if I can slow down its movement.

By the time the Barroth knew that I was under it, slashing away at anything that looked weak enough, it began to stomp around and see if it could stomp me.

I got away from its legs and got behind it as stomped around.

While I was behind it, it was strange to see that there wasn't as much rocky plating on its back or nape.

I somehow got the bright idea of jumping on top of the Barroth and running up to its neck to stab it and try killing it like that.

And that's exactly what I did.

I'll admit, this probably wouldn't have been something that I would've done in the first place, especially with how things ended up back in Axel last time, but this thing doesn't have any wings so nothing too bad will happen…

or at least that's what I thought..

The moment the Barroth knew that I was on its back and stabbing its nape, all hell managed to break loose and this turned from a regular hunt into a rodeo show.

With it moving from side to side and actually ramming into the stone pillars, the Barroth was roaring and moving violently to get me off its back.

"Tsukiyo! That looks fun! Can I have a turn?" Megumin shouted from the sidelines.

"I second that!" Darkness added in.

"Sure, but how about some help first!" I shouted as I tried to hold on to the sword that was still lodged in the Barroth.

With that said, Darkness used her Lance to drive the Barroth back and tried to control its rampage by trying to keep it in one place.

Megumin, on the sidelines, somehow got herself one of the slingers and flung rock at the Barroth. It wasn't much but at least it was something from her.

By the time the Barroth seemed to have run out of stamina and stopped shaking itself violently trying to get me off, I dug the sword out of the neck Barroth and jumped in front of its face as I did a downwards stab to it head using the strength of my Devil Bringer to bring down the Barroth to the ground.

The Barroth struggled to get back up as its arms and legs were in an awkward position to try and get up.

Before we knew it, we started to see the side of the Barroth get pelted with some small explosions, bullets, and an oversized beetle hitting it.

"Not bad Tsukiyo!" A voice called out from above.

As all three of us looked up to where the voice called out, we saw Cowboy using his polearm to travel midair, and do a downwards spin into a slam right on top of the Barroth's head.

I wasn't sure if it was just me seeing things, but I could've sworn that I saw a couple of rock chips break and fly off of the Barroth when Cowboy made contact with it.

"See, I knew you could do this! Just had to believe you know?" Cowboy said as he stepped back.

"Fine. I'll accept the positivity this time." I said as I looked away.

"There we go!" Cowboy said happily as he slapped me on the back.

"Hey Alexi! We got it downed for you! Do your thing!" Cowboy shouted.

"Da!" Alexi shouted.

As Alexi put his gun down and split it in half for some reason, he grabbed a sort of large belt mag and loaded it into his giant gun.

"LMG Mounted and Loaded!" He shouted before he pulled the trigger and started to rain literal hellfire onto the Barroth.

Now, I've never heard a machine gun be fired in real life, I'm already used to the sound of the Blue Rose being shot, but this was something else. I was actually feeling very intimidated as Alexi fired his gun into the monster cause the sound of his gun was insane.

The Barrel of his giant gun was running hot red as the bullet shells were continuously falling down near his feet and rolling down the sand.

Strangely enough, I feel like I've heard the Soviet National Anthem going on while Alexi was doing his thing.

"Mag Out!" He shouted as he stepped back and reloaded his LMG.

"So, where's Aqua and Kazuma? I think I got something for them to do." I asked Cowboy.

"Oh those two? They're hiding behind rock pillar not to far behind us." Cowboy said as he looked behind us as waved his arm telling them to get closer.

I looked behind us to see where they were only to find out that they were pretty far away from us.

"Get the hell over here!" I shouted to them.

"Hell no! Do you see that thing?! My short sword is gonna break if I even touch it!" Kazuma shouted.

"I'm a Healing and Water Goddess! I shouldn't even be near Dragons or whatever those things are! Are you out of your mind?! I'm staying here where it's safe!" Aqua also shouted.

~ ~ ~ ~

Do you think my Snatch ability can reach them?

 _Nope. Not long enough._

(That's what she said * _cries_ *)

Damn.

~ ~ ~ ~

"This thing is weak against Water! If you have Water magic, we could really use some right now!" Cowboy shouted.

"If you guys don't get over here in 10 seconds I'm smashing the Kotatsu and Wine bottles back in the mansion!" I shouted.

"We can always get more! Too bad!" Aqua shouted with a smirk on her face.

"Guy watch out!" Megumin shouted from the sidelines.

The Barroth that was behind us as back up on its feet as it roared at us again.

"Right then, what the plan?" I asked Cowboy.

"Simple; Out maneuver and take advantage. Think you and your girl can take aggro for a moment? I got a small plan in mind." Cowboy said.

"Sure why not. I know the perfect place to target its charge attack…" I said as I sheathed my sword on my back.

"Darkness! Follow me! We're need to drag it away from those 2!" I shouted as I pulled out the Blue Rose and started blasting.

Darkness followed after me and as we positioned ourselves ahead of where Aqua and Kazuma were hiding.

Since the Barroth was more focused on me, mainly because I shot its eye and stabbed it, it was charging hard at me with not much consideration of what it was doing.

I jumped out of the way so it wouldn't ram me, but Darkness on the other hand…

Darkness held her Lance sideways as she began to brace herself for a heavy impact.

Since I wasn't fast enough to tackle her out of the way, Darkness took the Barroth's charge head on and tried to push it back.

Despite having the highest defense out of everyone here, the large amount of momentum following after the Barroth was enough to push Darkness back as far as 10-15 ft. In a sense, they were basically fighting right in front of Aqua and Kazuma.

Aqua and Kazuma fell back hard as they both flailed around trying to get away from the monster.

The Barroth noticed them and roared once again while it was struggling to push Darkness back even further.

Kazuma was able to escape and get away from both Darkness and the Barroth in exchange for pushing Aqua back and leaving her behind.

"Hey, you Ass! Don't leave me behind!" She shouted in fear as she struggled to get up and run away.

I don't really blame him though.

I honestly would've done the same thing if I was in that situation…

Kazuma didn't listen or turn back as Aqua continued to cower in fear. True Leader everyone...

The Barroth Roared once again as it began to push Darkness back further.

"Ahhh! Get Away! 'Sacred Create Water!' " Aqua shouted.

Wait a minute, isn't that-

I wasn't able to finish my thought because my fears were instantly realised as Aqua summon a fucking Tsunami on us. Again!

God why does this only happen to us...

All of us in this small sand hill was easily swept away as the water threw us around like a fuckin toy and separated us in different directions, and yes that included the Barroth that we were supposed to hunt.

Thankfully, I didn't drown. At least I wasn't able to drown because Vergil was able to wake me up. No, it wasn't CPR like I did with Darkness back in Alcanretia, he just summoned Beowolf and decided to axe kicked me in my stomach in full force.

Yeah, it did work on me, and it did make me throw up the tsunami water and my last lunch, but at least I'm not dead…

"Get up. I'm not going to carry you back to the camp." Vergil said coldly as he looked around. It looked like I got swept into some kind of open space underground.

I could still see the sunlight since there was an open hole above us, and it didn't look like that there were actual walls aside from walls of sand falling down from the hole, so I guess the only way out was the exact same way I got swept in. The only way out of this place was through a small entrance ahead of us.

"This doesn't look like a familiar area, and it doesn't look like anyone flooded with you so I'll fight with you for now." Vergil said as he started to head towards the entrance.

"Wow...for once you're being nice." I said as I got up from the san-, well actually the mud as of right now.

"Right…" Vergil said as he dismissed my comment, "Hey, where's your rental?"

I looked at my hands, my sheath, and the space around me.

"Shit…" I said to myself, another lost sword...

"That damned Goddess…Do you have your gun at least?" He asked.

I checked my back holster and found my gun still holstered.

At least I still have that, really can't lose a multi-million eris creation in Bufu fucking Egypt.

I pulled out my pistol and cleaned out most of the mud and grime from inside the barrel and near the trigger and signaled to Vergil that I was ready.

"Alright, let's find out where we are-" Vergil was then interrupted as the ground began to shake violently.

"An Earthquake? No, this is different…" Vergil said to himself as summoned the Yamato and got into a battle stance.

The ground tremors continued as we looked around and soon found some kind of animal under the sand heading towards us from the entrance. While only a small hill formed on top, the shaking began to increase the closer it got to us, so this was something bigger than what we see.

"Don't stay in front when it comes out, stay on the side." Vergil said as he was about to dodge to the side.

When the small hill was now close enough, we were just about to jump to the side up until the hill and tremors stopped right in front of us.

"It stopped?" I said to myself.

I looked from side to side to see if we would probably get ambushed until both me and Vergil started to hear some heavy breathing, footsteps, and the sound of sand getting pushed aside from behind us.

We both jumped back and got ready to fight as we saw a different monster appear from within the falling sand wall.

The first thing to come out of the sand walls wasn't the face of the monster, but it was its horns. It's very own twisted devil-like horns coming from its head.

Is this the monster Cowboy told us about yesterday when we were in the Cafeteria? Diablos?

"Doesn't look like you can get a break now can you, Tsukiyo?" Vergil said as he got on his battle stance.

"Nope, I really can't." I said as I pointed the Blue Rose at the Monster and fired off all 3 shots at its face.

* * *

Oh boy...

I've really slacked of this series for 2 actual months…

Welp! My bad guys!

If any of you guys were actually wondering what happened to me, well then you're not so much as in luck as you think, cause even I don't know what the fuck happened.

Ok, well sort of a lie, I do know what happened, but I really don't at the same time.

If I were to sum it up in short, I'd say that I sort of forgot that I had to do this series, but had it burning in the back of my mind for a long time.

That, and I did sort of have some kind of writer's block.

At least, I think I still do have it to an extent, but it's not as bad as back in Thanksgiving where I actually didn't want to write anything at all.

I mean, it was nice not having to do anything and becoming a true deadbeat; Watching anime/YT for 8-9 hours, eating, sleeping, repeat. But man...being a true deadbeat is so nice but sucky at the same time since it means staying in my room for the whole day.

Not really good for my mental health, but hey it's already fucked beyond repair so no harm, no foul.

Now, onto the actual things that you're wondering about (or not), am I still gonna continued this story and the other one?

Yes, I will.

I mean I did take like a 2 month vacation off of it so, it'd probably be a bit logical to try to continue it you know?

Will it be a faster or slower pace than normal?

Hmmmm….

I'm still trying to figure that one out, since I do have to start college soon but I do have most of my days off, so I'll toy with the idea of either swapping over to 1 month uploads or stick with bi-weekly.

Either way, I'll still try to go for quality over quantity regardless of upload schedule, but for the sake of wanting to continue the story, I sadly might have to speed things up for the sake of storytelling.

By the way, I did watch the Konosuba and Bunny Girl Senpai movie, one gave me a lot of inspiration for Vol. 5 while the other one made me sad and rewatch the entire anime series in one day which made me even sadder.

….onto the questions…

Edit: For those very very few wondering, yes I will have a special title for chapter 69, trust me.

Edit 2: Goddamn it, I wanted to upload this on the 30th, but writing took too long. Especially when I had to write 4 chapters.

Edit 3: For fucks sake! Now procastination is fucking me over! Goddamn it!

Edit 4: Sorry for the short chapter, I didn't want to delay this even more, that along with the fact that this was a good cliffhanger to stop on.

 **Questions:**

 _FruitPunchSamurai-987:_

 _Will there be bosses from DMC5?_

Yes there will. I just have to think of a good time and place to put them in.

 _DoorToLight47:_

 _Seeing that Darkness will be using a shield and lance, will she get new abilities/skills?_

This I'm still trying to think it out, since the lance and shield is pretty basic. So aside from Absolute Defense, I want there to be another skill she has to actually be useful.

 _FireWyrm2:_

 _Will there be a Kazumin pairing?_

Nope. Megumin will be paired with the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Yes.

 _Maverick (Guest):_

 _A question mainly about the party and DMC bosses._

Yes, I'm trying to get the bosses from DMC5, 4, and maybe a bit of 3 into the story. Trust me they will be there. I have a couple of them planned out in the future, and one in this Arc.

 **Reviews:**

-Gen2324:

Shows in text that he said The Great War.

Shows in text that the time frame was 1917 (I think).

Shows in text that it was Trench Warfare.

Says it was WW2

No Offense but holy shit, this has bothered me for the past 2 months.

My Guy! It was WW1! I know that you probably didn't know, but as someone who sort of likes history for the War aspect of it, man did this fucking kill me.

But yeah, Slade is a badass.

-Kensei-1085

One would also think that, that could be a possibility here…

But then again this is the world of Konosuba where nothing makes sense and everything is backwards as hell. But in all seriousness, There will be a time where the party does shine and actually does cool stuff.

-Journey to the End

What he needs is for me to continue writing so he can get better.

-DoortoLight47

I sort of forgot he was an actual Character, I sort of based mine off Slade from Turok 2008.

-Pina (Guest)

There is a lot I want to say, but I can't since it'll be a pretty big spoiler but I will say one thing:

Vol. 7 is where the real shit goes down.

-Kino (Guest)

If you mean people like Donguri or Sakaki or the other Combo Mad guys, then no, you are absolutely high off of Pizza.

Have you seen their stuff man?! How do I write out something like that?!

But…

...I guess it's not impossible to write out my own combo mad….

...but only when the time comes...

-Reeds (Guest)

I want to try and hold off the kiss for someplace special and actually nice. I have an idea where, but it won't be for a while.

-Dude (Guest)

Thanks for enjoying the story, since it's been 2 months, I'm pretty sure you've had more than enough time to read the entire thing (if you haven't given up on it) so if you're reading this, then thanks for reading my story, and I hope you can enjoy the rest of what I upload.

-Shiroyasha Rises

I've been meaning to ask this to someone who always brings this up, but are Darkness pairing really that rare? I mean, I know the community is really strong for Megumin but is it really that rare for a Darkness ship?

Either way, More Blond M Waifu for me.

 **Happy (super late) New Years Guys!**

 **Here's to a new year with a hopefully consistent upload schedule...**


	62. Severance (V Act I)

_(I was gonna save this for the end of the Monster Hunter Arc, but since I've been gone for 2 months, this is the least I can do in terms of actual DMC content. If, you've already read Visions of V, or at least caught up to it, then not a lot will be new aside from V's motivation and some conversations.)_

* * *

 _….In the beginning, I did not know why I was brought into this world._

 _I did not know what my role would be while I was here…._

A Mysterious figure watched from a close distance as his two "Companions" wreak chaos upon a group of Orcs.

Red Lightning striking down mercilessly on them as they instantly get burnt to a crisp, while the shapeshifter immediately tore through them like a hot knife through butter.

But what I do know, is that we are not meant for this world…

"Hahaha! Come Little piggies! Gotta do better than that!" Griffon cackled as he continued to rain thunder down on his opponents.

Griffon, quite the foul-mouthed fowl. The only one of the trio capable of speaking and moving quite a distance without being tethered to me.

Though, he has had quite the downgrade ever since he last was 'alive'. Going from the size of building to a normal eagle, doesn't seem like he cares about his size, he's still quite a powerful foe to deal with.

A goo-like puddle formed from the ground up as it solidified into a Panther with faint red markings all over its body. The Panther growled lowly as it looks like it was communicating with Griffon.

"Don't be such a pussycat! He's fine! As long as he doesn't get caught off guard, ol' Shakespeare over there won't get hurt." Griffon said as he continued to send rows of thunder towards groups of Orcs…

Shadow, an even stranger entity than Griffon. With the ability to shapeshift it's body, you couldn't tell what it might do next, maybe it'll rush towards you with sharpened claws, or maybe it'll pin cushion you…

...Who knows, what matters is that it'll be too late for you to decide.

I closed my book as I looked over to where my companions were, "Are we done here? The flyer only said we needed 50, and I'm no genius but…" I looked over to the mountainous pile of burnt and mangled corpses ranging over 50, "I think we have more than we need…Let's go back."

"Aw c'mon V! Things were just getting good!" Griffon complained as he slowly followed behind me.

Without a second thought, Shadow immediately deformed back into the earth and appeared under my feet as a misty shadow.

"Don't complain, it's not like they were any more skilled than a toddler." I said back to him as Shadow began to take me back to that Town of Beginners.

"It's not the skill that makes things any fun, it's the number of them that shows up. That way I can smite them all in an instant." Griffon said as he chuckled to himself.

"Pretty big talk for a 'Pigeon sized' Demon servant…" I retorted back.

"Oooh...so you wanna play that game...alright then, you string beaned prick..." Griffon said as he continued to fly next to me.

Our arrival to this world was...odd, to say the least.

It all started during Tsukiyo's time of leave a couple months back…

As the massive demon bit into him and overloaded him with demonic energy, something inside of him broke and released the 2nd Son of Sparda, Vergil, giving him a bit more freedom in the form of a body…

..Including me ...a useless husk filled the negative emotions and memories of when I, or We, became that thing…

Of course, I wasn't the only one who escaped his mind…

Alongside me, were the 3 other hauntings of his past.

Griffon was the only one to appear to with me at that time, the other two...

Well...we'll get the other 2 later…

"Hey Sleeping Beauty! Are you gonna stay asleep or are you actually going to do something to get rid of that thing?!" Griffon shouted as he dragged my body away from the demon that nearly killed me.

As cocky and arrogant Griffon can be at times, I do owe him my life after he saved me from nearly getting killed.

He left me at a safe enough distance as we talked for the first time.

We've already come to an agreement where I'm powerless without any Weapons at my disposal, so we've made a deal, or a contract of sorts…

Without the ability to use the Yamato, let alone being able to hold it, Griffon will be at my command to defend me from any threat.

For him, I have to supply him with as much demonic power my body can physically produce.

What confused on the physical part?

Let me explain: Their source of power comes from me. I own an oddly magical book given to me from...an old friend, and use that to supply my power. If I use too much power, or if I can't produce any magic, then they'll begin to suck my life dry.

My body will begin to decompose at a slow speed, and I will slowly die along with those three...

...but as long as I have my book, I will stay alive.

I had to find this out the hard way when Griffon went overboard and struck the demon with a strong thunder attack.

With that large attack, it took away enough magic from me to bring me to my knees…

But the Demon did not disappear. It looked severely weakened, but not enough to kill it.

Flipping through the pages of my book, I looked for a way to see if there was something we could do to defeat the enemy, and that was until I flipped to a certain page…

With the words glowing a dark ominous energy it read:

 _Bring me my Bow of burning gold,_

 _Bring me my arrows of desire,_

 _Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!_

 _Bring me my Chariot of fire!_

 _I will not cease from Mental Fight,_

 _Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand!(1)_

Those words began to burn a mark in the palm of my hand as a steel cane protruded from it.

Those words from the book spawned this cane, my only weapon to defend myself and defeat enemies.

Griffon being happy...wouldn't be a wise choice of words.

I'd say he was more...livid at the fact that all I had was a cane, and nothing more. But he soon understood what power this cane held as I stabbed the weakened demon, making it dissolve from existence.

After that, a new agreement was made; Griffon weakens the demons, and I finish them.

Our celebration would have to wait as Vergil began to regain his consciousness.

With something like Griffon out in the open, talking isn't an option when it comes to demons. Especially ones that haunt your past…

We wandered around the village where the different species of monsters lived as we tried to find our way back to the village of beginners.

Thankfully, the memory of where the carriage traveled through was still fresh in my mind.

It didn't matter how long it took to get there, whether it be 10 minutes or 10 hours, I need to know…

...Why was I brought here?

It took 4 hours to arrive there, although it was in the middle of the night.

With no money to procure any food or shelter, I'd have to head to the 'Tavern' to find a job.

I wasn't surprised to see that it was still closed, but that's expected when it's late at night.

I wandered throughout the night and around the town until I found a closed down church in the more...lower end portion of the town.

As I entered the building, I was glad to see that it was completely vacated. This would have to do for now.

"Are you serious? You're gonna sleep here??" Griffon asked.

"I do not care where I lay my head, as long as it keeps me dry and not exposed out in the open, it'll do…" I said to him.

"We're living in an abandoned building man, there's no windows and the doors are already busted! It's basically the same!" Griffon continued to complain.

"Compared to you, I can't appear and reappear at will. My body is permanent, unlike yours…" I said as I took a seat up in a booth up front, "Now quiet down, I need to rest for tomorrow."

"Hold on, isn't it taboo for demons like us to kick our feet up in a church?" Griffon asked as he couldn't keep his beak shut.

"The church has been abandoned, there are no holy ones residing in this place anymore." I said as I tried to fall asleep.

"I don't know man, a cross is a cross no matter how you split it." Griffon seriously needs to shut up.

"Sigh...think of it this way; We are not from this world, this worlds religion does not apply to us. We don't need to pay attention to them." I told him as he finally shuts up.

"Alright...so what do I call you?" He asked once more, "Can't call you Vergil, some people already know your name here."

"I...don't know yet. We'll cross that bridge when we get there." I told him as I fell asleep.

 _~ 8 hours later_

"Come on off-brand Vergil, rise and shine!" Griffon said loudly as he woke me up, "We've got a big day today, don't go sleeping in!"

I got up groggily as Griffon perched himself on a booth close to me.

"We've got a long day ahead of us, buddy. Better get those scrawny limbs-" I grabbed Griffon's beak and closed them together forcefully.

"Rule 1: No excessive talking." I said tiredly.

How much energy does one bird have this early in the morning...

"Ugh! Finally…." Griffon said as he finally broke out of my hands.

"Come. We're heading into the guild. We can get quests there and get stronger." I said as began to head towards the exit, "But, you can't be seen."

"What? What does that mean?" Griffon questioned.

"With the exception of the Boy, this town isn't very...tolerable to demons, it's best for you to stay hidden." I told him.

"Fine. I'll back to being your ink for now…" Griffon stubbornly accepted.

As I began to walk to the guild, I couldn't help but feel calm around here, it's as if I'm back home...though, it's their home and not mine…

Finally reaching the Tavern in a short time, I looked around as I looked inside.

It's still the same as in his memories…

"Umm, excuse me sir can we help you? Are you lost?" A woman in blond hair said as she walked up to me.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Wow, not a bad body…_

Hush

~ ~ ~ ~

"No. I think I'm in the right place, this is the Adventurers Guild, am I right?" I asked her.

"Uh, Yes this is the place. Are you hoping to become an adventurer? If so, then I can help you with that. Follow me." she said as she began to walk towards a booth.

I followed her to the booth as she brought out a circular device.

"Please place your hand over the sphere." She said as she turned on the device and made it glow.

I place my hand over the sphere and to my surprise the sphere began to glow brighter for a moment before it dimmed down completely.

"Huh? That's never happened before." the woman said before examining the object.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Uh oh, the Jig's up, buddy. Make a run for it while you still can!_

Silence, nothing has been suspected yet..

~ ~ ~ ~

"Ummm, sorry for asking this but…" the woman said as she looked up to me.

I have not been made yet…

"Are you sure you want to become an adventurer? I'm not one to judge, but I don't think you'd be suited to become one, especially with your stature in mind…" She said hesitantly.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Hahahahahahaha! I mean she isn't wrong you know! It already looks like the wind you could knock you down!_

~ ~ ~ ~

"Oh, there's no need for you to worry about me. I already have a companion who'd fight for me. I am a summoner." I said trying to convince her.

I pulled out my book and flipped to a random page;

 _"Silent, Silent Night,_

 _Quench the holy light,_

 _Of thy torches bright,_

 _For possessed of Day,_

 _Thousand spirits stray,_

 _That sweet joys betray." (2)_

 _~ ~ ~ ~_

 _We're really going this route aren't we?_

Do we have a choice?

 _I mean we could always--_

No.

 _Yeah, figures…_

~ ~ ~ ~

My book glowed a dark violet before Griffon appeared before me and the woman in the booth.

"Caw! Caw!" Griffon said mimicking a bird of some kind.

"Oh! What a unique bird! What's its name?" She asked mesmerised from Griffons form.

"I call him Griffon, I'm not entirely good with names…" I said to her.

"I see. Do you have any other companions?" she asked me.

"Sadly no, I have yet to discover any more companions to aid my journey." I said as I sort of lied to her.

"I see. Alright, well this machine doesn't seem like it wants to work, so I guess I'll to do this the manual way…" She said before she brought out what looks to be a typewriter of some kind and a small needle.

"Please prick your finger and squeeze a drop of blood on this card." she said as she handed me the card and needle.

I did what she said and handed her back the card, "Alright, I guess this one seemed to have worked." She said as she continued to work with the typewriter.

"Oh. Hmm." She said to herself with a troubled face.

"Is there anything wrong?" I asked her.

"Um...I don't know how to say this any other way, but…" she said hesitantly.

"But?" I repeated.

"But...all your stats and possible abilities...they're blank. Most of the stats here are blank. The only ones that appear to be normal are Health, Agility, Defense, and...DT?" she said, not understanding my circumstance.

"There isn't a name either, but at least I can change this." She said as she worked on the typewriter.

"What's your name?" she asked me.

"...V." I said after giving it some thought, "Just put down V."

"Are...you sure? This name can't be changed once it's officially made." she said as warned me.

"It's fine. I have no name, and I am but two days old…(3) V will be fine…" I told her.

"If you say so." she said as she accepted my new name.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _V huh? Sure, I guess that works…_

~ ~ ~ ~

"Alright Mr...V, your adventurer card is ready to be used, that will be 20,000 eris." she said as she held onto the card.

"I...was not aware that I needed money for this." I said as I checked my pockets, only to come up empty.

"Sigh….why do people these days never have any…" the woman sighed in annoyance, "It's fine, it's fine. If you go to that board right there, you'll see a couple of quests posted for today. Find one that gives 20,000 or more eris and you'll earn this card. Though, I do suggest that you find a party to-"

"It's fine. I think I'll be able to hold my own…" I said as I interrupted her and headed towards the board.

There were quite an amount of quests to do, ranging from simple exterminations to scout mission to general labor work.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Hey, pick a fun one will ya? I wanna see how I scale up to regular monsters._

If he insists….

~ ~ ~ ~

I grabbed a poster off the wall and took it with me as I left the Tavern.

Quest:

Take out the nest of Goblins in the old ruins.

Location: South of Axel walls, 20 miles away.

Rewards: 50,000 eris along with any valuables found.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Goblins? Really?_

With the amount of firepower we have, I'm afraid this will have to do. We need you stronger so we can survive.

We cannot rely on the boy and his party if we are to survive.

~ ~ ~ ~

Aside from the two of us, we're on our own….

For the next 40-50 minutes, we walked our way towards the ruins for our quest. But with my limited stamina, I needed to take frequent breaks.

This body really is weak.

I need to procure some kind of mode of transportation.

As we got to the old ruins, I could already tell that something was off, and it wasn't because of the dismembered Goblin body.

Griffon reappeared from my body as he began to fly next to me, "Something ain't right uh...V."

"You're right, You'd think that there would be some kind of scout looking out for the rest of the group to warn them of invaders. That or they're stupidly prideful of their strength." I said as I observed the mangled body.

"Oh wow, a joke. Looks like you do have a sense of humor." Griffon retorted.

"Come, we need to investigate further." I said as I began to walk deeper into the ruins.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you serious? You see a dead body and the first thing you wanna do is look for the thing that did this?" Griffon asked

"Why of course." I said as used my cane to drag him closer, "If this thing can do this to a Goblin, it's all the more reason for me recruit it."

Griffon broke out of my hold as he flapped behind me, "God, you people are insane."

As we walked further into the ruins, we began to spot more and more mangled bodies, most of them cut in half, dismembered by a claw, or have their entire upper torso missing.

"What the hell happened here…" Griffon said as he saw all these bodies.

"Shadow happened…" I replied.

"Shadow? You mean that Shadow? The shapeshifter?" Griffon asked.

"Yes, that one. We need to recruit it as soon as possible." I said as I began to quicken my pace.

"Why? What's gonna happen?" Griffon said as he followed after me.

"The same thing is gonna happen to it as it did to you yesterday, it'll run out of magic for it to even function." I said as I began to hear some voices and a low moan.

I slowed my pace as I looked ahead.

Just like I expected there it was, Shadow, a black panther with capabilities of shapeshifting out of magic and laying on its side.

It didn't help that it was already surrounded by a dozen or so goblins.

"Oh boy, that's a lot of them. Poor kitty got bested." Griffon said as he chuckled to himself.

"Griffon, can how many can you strike at once?" I asked him as I began to hold my cane like a sword.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa V. Trust me, I think I can take all of them out in one go." Griffon said as he began to fly ahead.

If he says he can…

Griffon was on top of Shadow as he soon became the Goblins main attention, "Hey you ugly midgets! Eyes up here!"

Griffon began to raise its wings above his head as his body began to crackle with electricity.

I brought my book out as and began to read it as I could already feel my body deteriorate.

Unexpectedly, a couple of the Goblins began to throw their spears and rocks at Griffon as he charged his attack.

"Ow, ow, ow! Hey you little shits!" Griffon began to complain as he stopped charging and started to evade the objects coming at him.

It was foolish of me to even trust his judgement…

Luckily, he was flying away from Shadow and dragged enough of them to let me near him without getting spotted.

Shadow groaned lowly as he saw me.

"Look at you, torn down and weakened. All from mere Goblins." I said to it, "Aren't you ashamed? To be bested by these kinds of creatures? Even after fighting Dante?"

"You could form a contract with me and I'll make sure your talent isn't wasted. Though that's your choice, become a slave to me or rot away for all I care." I said as I antagonised it more.

Shadow groaned lowly again as part of its body began to deform and get close to me.

I expected it to form the contract with me, what I didn't expect was Shadow stabbing through my right hand to form said contract.

Shadow body began to dissolve and cover my entire right arm in the same tattoo pattern like Griffon yesterday.

I stood up with the help of my cane as I turned to a page in my book;

 _The wanton Boy that kills the Fly,_

 _Shall feel the Spiders enmity.(4)_

"Shadow," I said as I summoned him, having him appear in front of me out of the ground.

Shadow roared loudly as he garnered the attention of all the Goblins that was chasing after Griffon, "About damn time!" He said as he flapped slowly regaining his stamina.

All of the Goblins began to rush towards me, daggers, spears, and slingshots in hand.

"Go." I commanded Shadow as I pointed my cane towards them, "Leave nothing behind."

With my command, Shadow rushed towards the Goblins at full speed before it dove into the ground. Soon after, tentacles began to pop out from the ground and thrash at every and all direction, leaving not only dismembered bodies but limbs and body parts no longer recognizable (Shadow move: Breakthrough.)

When it comes to standard enemies of this world, there seems to be no trouble in taking them out. Griffon and Shadow can handle themselves perfectly….

...The only problem with them is the fact that they can't take out demons completely, that's when I have to step in…

This is good to know. Makes my job much easier in the long run.

With a couple of stragglers on the side, they began to run off in different directions to get away from us.

"Oh no you don't!" Griffon said as he began to strike the remaining Goblins with his thunder.

Well then, I guess our work here is done.

"So, I guess the little kitty is here to stay." Griffon said as he flapped back to me.

I didn't say anything to him as I proceeded to head towards the exit while regaining my power.

"What?" Griffon asked by my lack of response.

" 'Trust me, I think I can take all of them out in one go' " I said as I mocked him.

"Oh come on! They had spears and rocks! How was I supposed to fight against that?!" Griffon said as he complained.

"Simple, you wait until we have some kind of plan. Rushing in without a plan will kill you." I told Griffon as we continued towards the exit.

Shadow made a low groan towards Griffon as it walked beside me.

"Yeah, like you have any right to talk, Mr. I'll-blaze-right-through-them." Griffon retorted to Shadow.

"Enough chatter, we're heading back." I said as we finally got back outside.

Shadow groaned at me as he began to form into a puddle of mist.

"Hey, Pink Panther here wants you to ride him. Says he'll get to where you need quickly. I don't know if that's some kink for him or not." Griffon said as he disappeared back to becoming my tattoo.

I'll admit, while skeptical at first, using Shadow as a mode of transportation was convenient to say the least.

We even manage to cut our travel time by 20 minutes.

"I have finished my quest, ma'am." I said as I laid down the quest paper.

"You...did this all by yourself?" she asked in astonishment.

"Yes, I did. Now, the card if you may." I said sticking out my hand.

The woman sighed as she handed me my card, "Why am I getting the strangest of people…"

"Here, the rest of your money." The woman said as she gave me a medium sized pouch.

"Thank you." I said as I was about to leave the tavern.

So this card holds my 'status'?

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

General

Upgrade any of the attributes by 1 for 1 point

Current Level : 1

Strength : 10 --Status--Normal

Vitality : 300/300 (Increases by 50 for each level up)

DT : 600/600 (Lasts 10 minutes)

Stamina : 2

Defense : 8

Agility : 2

Luck : ???

Faith : ???

Dexterity : ???

Will : 20

Intelligence : 50

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade myself if I want to survive in this world. I'll start working on that tomorrow...

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Is that it? You're just going to go back? Let's go do other quests while the sun's still up!_

Fine, this time, don't go charging in by yourself.

~ ~ ~ ~

I went over to the quest board and proceeded to look through for something to do…

...until something caught my eye.

Emergency Quest:

Mysterious black slime terrorising local swamp. Guarded by humanoid black golem.

Location: 15 miles west of Axel town.

Reward: 200,000 eris.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. It's here?! That abomination is really here?!_

~ ~ ~ ~

I tore off the flyer from the wall and began to make my way towards the swamp.

Griffon, despite being within city walls, appeared in front of me.

"Are you insane!? You know damn well that that thing isn't going to listen to you! It didn't even listen to Mundus, and he was the top dog of the Underworld at that time!" Griffon said as he tried to persuade me.

"That's all the more reason to recruit it. With its power like that, it'd be a waste to let it get destroyed by these 'Adventurers.' " I said as I began to walk.

"V, buddy, pal, ol' chum. Listen to me, please. This isn't going to end well. It was chained up and restricted for a reason! It's not like he did it for shits and giggles you know!" Griffon continued, "Me and Shadow can do enough as it is, so why don't we-"

I shut Griffon up as I used my cane to drag him aside and hid in a nearby corner.

"Sigh...Why can't Tsukiyo come back already? He's just made things so much more difficult…" A voice nearby said, it was a boy by the sounds of it.

"Well it's not like he had a reason not to, we haven't seen what he's gone through and with everything that happened earlier, I'd say he's sort of has a reason to do so." Another voice said, a girl this time, "Besides, I'm more worried about Dark-...Uh….Aqua what are you doing?"

"I smell some demons nearby…." Another voice said, another girl this time, but quite annoying, "Show yourselves! I'll purify you back to Hell!"

"Shut up already! We already have people looking at us strangely! We don't need anymore stares!" The boy said.

"Griffon, get lost. Now." I whispered to him.

Griffon immediately disappeared back into a tattoo, while I made my attempt to escape the town.

As I finally escaped the town, I soon made my way towards the west of this town.

Griffon appeared once again while still trying to convince me to not 'negotiate' with Nightmare.

"V, please. Don't do this, we've only been born for 2 days, 2 DAYS! And after 2 days you really want to throw your life away!?" Griffon continued to plead, "Come on, pussycat, even you know how powerful that thing is. I know V can't hear you, but at least put up some kind of fight!"

A low growl was heard from beneath me as Shadow continued to guide me towards the West.

"Who cares about serving the Master! Your blind devotion is gonna get us killed!" Griffon continued, "V, please. Tell me we have some kind of plan. You said it yourself, rushing in without a plan will get yourself killed, right? Right!?"

"You are correct, I did say that. Though for a beast like this, no amount of plans will completely prepare us for this." I told him as I continued to focus.

"We're fucked….We're fucked! We're so fucking fucked! Godammit V! I wanted to enjoy my 2nd life a little bit more before I bit the dust you know!?" Griffon cried in terror.

We continued to make our way to the swamp, and in a matter of 20 minutes, we reached our destination…

The flyer said that the swamp was covered in the black slime, and that Nightmare was guarding this area…

I guess what I read was them putting it lightly…

This entire swamp area already is already oozing with the stench of death and decayed animals/plants/ and any living thing that stepped in here.

Tree's are rotted from the inside, the bones of old corpses have already wilted and are starting to decompose, and the water...Well...let's just say that one sip will cause a very painful death...

The swamp might as well already be considered a quarantine zone…

...And we're already about to step foot into it.

"V, wait…" Griffon said he stopped me from walking into the decayed swamp, "Before we go in there and inevitably die, I gotta ask...Why are you going this far to get stronger? Why did we hide from those people earlier, and what's the point of us being here?"

"Look, I know this is a lot coming from me, but I just have to know, Why are we here?" Griffon asked solemnly.

It is very rare for a demon to show emotions, especially when those demons were once considered a significant threat to all of humanity at one point.

"It's not a surprise to say that we came from Vergil, and I apologise, but I don't know why we're here. We were once part of his own nightmares that once haunted him, but more importantly we are the living manifestation of what he used to be; Anger, Pride, Greed, and Fear. Everything he hated, hanging over him like a guillotine." I said as I began to look at the book that Vergil was once given from his youth.

"But given that circumstance, I do _not_ trust nor suspect that he has been reformed, not in the slightest. Decade after decade of fighting and seeking for power, one cannot change their ways in an instant. He's destroyed too much, threw everything away, for such a foolish goal such as Power. It is sin that I will not let him repeat into this world, even if it costs me my own life."

"You ask me why, why go so far to recruit Nightmare into our ranks? So I can tell you 'To stop Vergil if he ever goes back to what he once was.' Vergil's own existence is enough of a reason to stay weary and suspicious.

"Should that day ever happen, we will head to Vergil and stop him at once. I will not allow bystanders to get involved with this, not anymore. The alternate Dante, might serve to be useful as he is his natural Rival, but the boy, Tsukiyo, is deadweight to us." I said as I finished my speech.

"Alright. That's a good enough reason…" Griffon said as he finally stopped resisting to the idea of taking in Nightmare, "C'mon, let's go get the big guy."

"Good, now let's hurry before-" I wanted to say more until the dark water around us started to tremble and soon pull us in the water.

"V!" Griffon shouted as he saw me sink.

It was strange…

While I was pulled into the water, it didn't feel like I was drowning. As a matter of fact, I don't think I felt anything at all.

All that was happening was me falling down ever so gently in a dark abyss.

But unlike an abyss, there was at least a surface to land on.

On this surface, there was nothing in sight, just pure Darkness…

As I continued to look around, I soon began to hear voices…

"C'mon bro! Let's go outside!" A voice echoed.

"No. Leave me alone, I'm reading." Another childlike voice said.

So...this is his memory…

My began to swell as all this happened.

How long has it been since those two had an actual conversation…

Not like it matters anyways, we're in a different world now. I don't think there's a chance to ever talk to him again..

My thoughts were soon interrupted by the sound of a voice, a woman's voice.

"Vergil!" the woman yelled, "Vergil where are you?"

Despite being separated from Vergil, part of me wanted to reach out to that voice.

Well, at least I wanted to…

The Darkness around me started to melt as a scene was starting to form.

This scene…

Oh, this scene…

Nightmare's name seems fitting after all…

The woman in front of me, would soon be a burnt corpse as the image of her would be burned into my mind.

Had this been Vergil himself, he would've lashed out at the sight of his mother being burned in front of him…

I walked up to the illusion of the mother and waffed it away, making it disappear.

...But to me, this is only a mere illusion.

The scene around me began to fade as the Darkness began to creep in again.

The only difference is that there was a mirror right in front of me.

As I walked up to the mirror, I saw Vergil.

Everything about him actually looked like him, I tried to take a closer look only to find that the Vergil in the reflection was coming towards me, or towards the mirror.

As he came closer, his image started to change.

The closer he got, the more paler and lifeless he looked.

Up until he looked like that thing...

Now you're just mocking me…!

I smashed the mirror in front of me with the cane, even the mirror itself was an illusion..

Is this all Nightmare is going to do, just torment me until I go mad?

If so, then he's already too late…

It takes a Madman to go headfirst into a Nightmare!

Behind the smashed mirror was what I was looking for, the true form of what Nightmare was.

A formless blob of black ooze and tarred bones…

...but in the middle of it all was the core, it's very heart...

The closer I stepped towards it, the more it tried to run away and protect its very core.

By the time I was close enough to take its core, I used most of my demonic power to cover my hand in a protective layer to reach in for the core.

And as if everything was just a Nightmare, I was able to resurface from the swamp water. Like nothing ever happened at all.

"V!" Griffon shouted happily, "You're alive buddy! And with that Thing's core! Let's smash it and-"

I looked at the decayed swamp and saw the water and black ooze surround me as it saw me with it's very heart.

"No, no, no, no! Not this time you monster! Make one wrong move and our buddy here will- WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Griffon shouted at me as I gave Nightmare back it's core.

"We had our trump card against it and your giving it back?!" Griffon said as he perched on my head and tried to peck it.

"I think you're mistaken, Griffon. I'm not giving it back, I'm bestowing it to it." I said as Nightmare took back its core, "It should already know that it's been bested."

As Nightmare began to take back its core, all the black ooze in the swamp began to form up in a single blob in front of me and soon envelop me in it.

Part of the ooze began to sink into my skin and evaporate away. All that became of it was a necklace that looped around my neck a couple of times.

With this, my party is complete…

"You're insane V, you're insane!" Griffin began to complain.

"Crazy? Maybe. But insane, no, not in the slightest." I responded back

"You never changed from your original form you know…" Griffon said, "You're still pretty power hungry…"

That may be, but at least I am not powerless.

Not anymore...

"So what's next? You can't fit any more familiars in that body, and there doesn't seem to be any more familiars around…." Griffon asked

"What's next, you ask?" I said as I began to head back to the town, "What we need is to prepare. There is no telling when Vergil will return to his old ways. Until that day comes, you three will have to get stronger. We cannot do this alone…"

For the next couple of weeks, I began my journey to train and make all three of my companions stronger.

Facing all kinds of enemies, demons, goblins, orcs, hellbats, and other things alike.

Each day was a repeat of the last;

Wake up in the church, do quests, eat something since this body requires food, and go back to the church to rest.

This was the only thing I was required to do…

….until I met a certain demon.

He was unusually dressed well despite being a demon and wore a mask with the roman numeral 2 etched onto it.

I was surprised to see another demon reside in this town aside from the boy and his other companion.

It seems this demon is a user of clairvoyance. The ability to see into the future.

I was able to know this since he anticipated my arrival before I stepped through the small shop he co-owned with the other demon. And before I was even able to say anything, he rejected my request.

"If Moi looks into thou's future, there is a chance that thou's future may not come true." he said, "Besides, if Moi doth decides to look into Thou's future, what's in it for Moi?"

"What's in it for you? You say?" I said to him, "Well then...how about an Insurance of some kind…"

"Insurance?" He said skeptically.

"Yes, Insurance." I said as a took a seat nearby, "Insurance for the future. A future not even you can predict."

"Oh, really?" The demon said as he seemed intrigued, "Is thou making a threat for Moi?"

"Oh no, no. I'm not making any threats here. I'm only saying, that there is a chance that something could spiral out of control. Something so out of control, no amount of Clairvoyance can fix the outcome.

"Besides, you told me if you look into my future, there's a chance that it may not come true." I said as I began to lean closer to the demon, "And I want to make damn sure, that what you see is something that never happens."

The demon once again chuckled to himself as he took a seat in front of me, "Thou is a very interesting person. Hard to say that Thou is the same person as demon who resides in the child." The demon said as he began to stir some tea.

"If you know who I am, then you know how powerful he can get. Which is why you should-"

"There is no need." The demon said as he interrupted me.

"Moi has already looked into Thou's future and saw...quite a dilemma." The demon told me before he took off his left glove, "Moi could tell you, but Moi does not have the time to do so, so showing Thou should make things easier."

The demon took his exposed hand and barely touched my forehead before I was flooded with flashing images all of them from this moment up until one fateful day…

The flashing images stopped at that point before I was back at the small shop.

"It's much worse than I expected…" I said as I began to laugh by myself, "But…"

I stood up from the chair with my cane in tow as I got myself a new sense of determination, "This is exactly what I needed…."

"Hmm...such a strange fellow Thou is." The demon said as he put his glove back on, "But now that Thou hath seen the future, what shall Thou do now?"

I chuckled to myself as he asked me that question, "You're a user of Clairvoyance, and yet you ask me that question. Shouldn't it be obvious?"

"Hmpf, Thou shall call Moi Vanir. Moi will await your next Visit, V." Vanir, the demon said as he gave a slight bow as Ieft the shop.

~ ~ ~ ~

 _So...uh...what are you gonna do? I mean I'm no mind reader like that dude, but I don't like left being in the dark either._

It's simple. We continue with what we've always been doing. Get stronger, earn enough to survive, and await for Vergil to return to his roots…

...Though, we will need quite a chunk of change for the near future…

 _What for? It's not like you'll be able to use a Sword and Shield with your arms like that, no offense…_

Foolishness Griffon…

We'll need the money to hire the Fill-in Dante.

 _Huh? Why him?_

You'll see…

~ ~ ~ ~

For the rest of the time that I live here, I've managed to earn quite a large amount of savings from quests that pay heavily.

I've had Griffon tail the boy, Tsukiyo, over to a resort of some kind and I've even met him in person. He still has some ways to go before he can keep up with Vergil and the Dante Fill-in, Kosuke.

And the boy has even left the Town temporarily to get stronger.

It's all coming together, slowly, but it's guaranteed.

All that's needed now, it to take the first step…

I knocked my cane gently on the door as a voice was heard on the other side.

"Come in!" the voice said.

As I opened the door and stepped through, I saw an Elf woman rummaging through some boxes and rearranging something to the side as a man in his late 20's was lying back on a chair with his foot up on the desk.

"Devil May Cry. How can we help you?" The man in the red coat said.

 _….In the beginning, I did not know why I was brought into this world._

 _I did not know what my role would be while I was here…._

 _But now…_

 _Now I know why…_

 _...I must prevent a future of Vergil destroying this world for his lust for power…_

 _...I'll do whatever it takes to stop him..._

 _Even if it means killing him..._

Reference:

1 - William Blake - Jerusalem

2 - William Blake - Silent, Silent Night

3 - William Blake - Infant Joy

4 - William Blake - Auguries of Innocence.


	63. Regrouping (MH 7)

The ground shook violently as the stomps of the Diablos continued to run towards me and Vergil.

Compared to the Barroth that was rushing at me earlier, the Diablos was going at a much faster pace.

Me and Vergil managed to dodge it by stepping aside from it, but instead of continuing to run past us, the Diablos stopped itself and started to throw its tail side to side at us.

I fired off another 3 shots at the Diablo's ass, but just like all my other shots before, they all bounced off.

Instead of turning around and trying to charge at us again, the Diablos started to use its front claws to dig at the ground in front of it and start to disappear into the ground.

The ground started to vibrate a lot as a small molehill started to come towards me at a quick pace.

"Get Down!" Vergil shouted as he got 2 rows of spectral swords ready to fire at the monster.

I jumped out of the way when the Vibrations stopped for a moment only for the Diablos to pop its head out and get out of the sand.

The moment the rest of the Diablos' body was fully shown and vulnerable, Vergil fired off all the swords at it. For a moment you could almost mistake them for blue missile at a distance with how fast and impactful they looked when it hit the Diablos.

I fired off another 3 shots at the Diablos' head, and while I was not expecting to do a lot of damage to it, I was surprised to see that part of its face was slightly fleshier than the Barrot I fought earlier.

2 of my shots bounced off the horns, while one of my shots lodged into its cheek.

While this is a good thing to discover, the fact that the Diablos turned its attention towards me and started to charge at me repeatedly was not good.

It also didn't help that the Diablos was much smarter when it came to charging since whenever I dodged, it would either turn its body around and charge at me again or swing its tail hoping to hit me.

Oddly enough, Vergil was nowhere to be seen as the Diablos continuously charged at me.

"Tsukiyo!" A shout was heard, I looked from side to side and saw that Vergil was running towards me with with his Beowulf Gauntlets out, "Out of the Way!" he shouted.

I didn't have to think too hard to dive out of the way for Vergil to do an Endo flip and kick the Diablos' head hard towards the ground.

The sheer power from Vergil endo kicking the Diablos made the ground shake for a solid 3 seconds while the ground even cracked a bit, making a small crater.

Vergil stepped back from the disorientated Diablos and was winding up for a heavy punch as he began to charge up his attack.

As the Diablos slowly got up definitely hurt from the kick Vergil did, it began to make a weak roar at him as one of its horns was cracked and starting to break off.

Vergil's fist was glowing from a faint yellow to a bright white. He looked like he was about to rush up and punch the monster up until it began to roar at us once again and dig into the ground.

The ground shook as the Diablos dug its hole.

I got up in a panic and began to back away from the Diablos thinking that it would've pulled a surprise attack on either me or Vergil while he was charging up, but to my surprise the molehill that formed ahead of us began to head somewhere else.

Vergil stopped charging his fists and made the gauntlets disappear, "Turning tail, huh?" he said to himself.

"Come on. Let's try to regroup with the others. We need to find you a weapon." He said as he began to head towards the other direction.

"Not gonna go after it?" I asked as I put away my gun.

"There's no need. If an animal fears and acknowledges another's strength, chances are it might run off and not bother them. If that monster knows and fears my strength, it won't mess with us again." Vergil said as he continued to walk.

As we began to follow the water that washed me in this cave, we started to walk uphill and soon see actual daylight.

Me and Vergil looked around the area and hoped to see something that might've looked familiar, but it was no use since most mountains and rocky areas look the same.

"Dammit…" Vergil swore as saw no recognizable landmark, he sighed to himself as stepped out of the cave's mouth and started walking ahead, "Looks like we're gonna have to look around for a bit if we want to find something or someone…"

I was just about to follow him before I saw what looked like a small signal fire.

"Hey, check it out!" I pointed out.

Vergil turned his head to what I saw and warped himself to a higher vantage point on a small hill.

"It's a bit far from where we are, but we can get there regardless. Come, let's go before more monsters start to show up." Vergil said as began to take point and head towards the smoke signal.

While Vergil did say that it was a bit far, I honestly didn't expect for the entire trip there to take about 2 hours, oh, and remember the heat that I told you about? You know, the unbearable heat that makes it feel like the Sun just sat its buttcrack down on this desert? Yeah, that still applies here.

The trip was bumped up to 2 hours because the heat almost made me pass out twice from dehydration.

Note to self, crushed bug juice will always stay as a last resort. Always.

Thankfully, the sun was starting to set slowly so there was definitely a generous amount of shade along the way.

The closer we got to the smoke signal, the more we started to hear some shouting, crying and yelling, mainly from Aqua and Kazuma.

"I said I was sorry already! But this is your fault too! If you didn't leave me for dead, I wouldn't have need to call in my water!" Aqua cried out from a distance. Jesus, you can hear her from this far?!

Vergil sighed to himself as he too heard Aqua complain from a distance. I wasn't sure if it was just me, but it looked like Vergil started to walk a bit slower and sightsee around us more often as we got closer.

"Ok, Ok! Maybe part of this was my fault! But this is still Tsukiyo's fault for bringing us here in the first place!" Kazuma shouted back, "Ugh! This entire thing was a mistake! First the town situation and now this?! Goddamn it!"

"Keep fire lit!" A pretty annoyed voice barked at them.

"S-Sorry!" Both Aqua and Kazuma said as they cowered in fear.

"God, can you two be any louder? We weren't even 50 feet away and we could hear you guys shout…" Vergil commented as he drug his feet over to where Kazuma, Aqua, and Alexi were.

It looked like they had found a spot in a half cave to set up camp and wait for others.

"Hey! Tsukiyo! Ooo, Do I have a bone to pick with-" Kazuma said as he was just about to mouth me off before Vergil grabbed the back of his shirt collar and tossed him back to Aqua.

"Hey! But out of this, I don't care if your a Demon, I have some things that need to be sa-" Kazuma got cut off again as one of Vergil's spectral swords forcefully launched itself near his head, shutting him up completely.

"You. Heavy Gunsman, do you know where are?" Vergil asked.

"Uncharted Territory. Sorry." Alexi said as he took off his helmet and wiped off his sweat, "Cowboy is well tuned with nature. We find him, we find our location."

"And where is Cowboy?" Vergil asked.

"Not here yet. We wait until then." Alexi said as he began to clean off his gun.

"Fine then." Vergil said as he took a spot away from Kazuma and Aqua and began waiting for Cowboy to get here.

"Tsukiyo, is Darkness or Megumin not with you?" Aqua asked.

"No, I ended up alone, I was kinda hoping that they were with you." I said.

"Hmm, that's too bad. I was hoping to see Megumin with you just so Kazuma could shut up." Aqua said as she laid down.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked curiously

"Hey Aqua don't you dare-!" Kazuma said as he began to blush a bit and try to stop her.

"Kazuma was blabbing for 30 minutes straight worrying about Megumin. Saying that she's pretty vulnerable in the wild since she doesn't have any other spells aside from her 'Explosion Magic.'" Aqua said casually while Kazuma began to blush a lot more.

"Oh, what's this? Is a male teammate of mine actually being worried for someone of the opposite gender?" I teased.

"Goddamn it Aqua, why didn't you keep your mouth shut!" Kazuma said as he cursed under his breath.

"Well, don't be too embarrassed about it. I'm pretty worried about both her and Darkness, but as long as they have Cowboy guiding them to the right direction, I don't think we need to worry about them too much." I said as I laid down right next to him.

"Yeah, maybe you're probably right." Kazuma said as he scratched his head embarrassingly.

All 5 of us waited for the last 3 to get here so we could know where to and how to get out, but as an early sunset turned into almost night time, we were starting to get a bit anxious.

"H-hey, it's been a while since we've got here. You think they might've left us behind?" Aqua said as she squirmed around in front of the fire.

Part of me really hoped that that wouldn't be the case, mainly because we have no idea where we are, but also because I know Darkness is really gonna be worried about me by the time we all get back.

As much as I would like to go out and search for them, it'd be pretty useless to do so since, aside from the bonfire, the moon light is the only light source out here.

Alexi sighed as he put on his helmet and strapped his gun onto his back, "Come, let's go find airship. Bring 2 torch for light."

"Just for today, I'll make sure to help out the gunner. After that, you're on your own again." Vergil said as he grabbed the Yamato and started to follow Alexi.

With only 2 torches and the somewhat bright moon, as our only light source we continued deeper and a bit higher into the desert. We've encountered a couple of small monsters on our way back, but other than that we didn't really get anything too bad where the party was in a scramble.

Alexi continued to look up into the night sky as he used the stars as a compass. While this is another world with a completely different universe, the night sky did have its share of similarities with the one back on earth.

As we continued to walk through the desert, it has now gone full night time, so if the moon was behind a tree or a mountain, it would immediately become pitch black.

After a long time of walking, we decided to take a small break.

I looked around us hoping to see anything that looked familiar, but even with a torch in my hand, everything looked the same. I was just about to give up trying to find something that looked familiar before I saw some red circular runes slowly form way off into the distance.

"Hey...Hey guys!" I said loudly to get some attention.

Everyone looked to where I was and saw what I saw.

"That's Megumin's magic! Come on!" Kazuma said as he began to run ahead of us.

"Alexi, We follow those runes, we might just meet up with Cowboy!" I said as I followed after Kazuma.

"Da!" Alexi said as he grabbed his heavy gun and started to run towards the runes.

"Tsukiyo! Wait up! Dammit…." Vergil swore as he was the last to follow us.

All of us in the group sprinted towards the runes in the sky. As we began to get closer and closer to them the symbols started to get bigger and bigger until Megumin, or at least we hope it's Megumin, fired off the explosion magic.

Even though we were still pretty far from the explosion, the power was enough to vibrate and shake the ground as we ran towards it.

The mushroom cloud that emerged from it already looked sizable from a distance and the closer we got to it, the larger the smoke and dust began to cover the area ahead of us.

By the time we got really close to the explosion area, we were starting to have some kind of vision trouble since the smoke and dust began to block our sight. It didn't help that there was also a suffocating kind of heat around the blast area, making it really hard to get close.

"Megumin!" Kazuma and Aqua called out trying to see if they can spot their jihad-loli.

"Cowboy!" Alexi also shouted trying to find his comrade.

All of us were trying to make our way either through or around the explosion crater as we tried to call out the rest of our team.

"Darkness!" I called out.

So far there was no response from either of the names we called out.

"...kiyo!" there was a voice that called my name out from a distance that I thought I heard.

I tried my best to focus my hearing and see if I could tell where the voice came from, but to no luck the dust still made things cloudy around me.

"Darkn-!" I tried to call out once again until the ground began to shake.

While the ground was shaking, I pulled out my revolver and began to look around me.

While Megumin's explosion magic is pretty powerful, I don't think it's powerful enough to cause an earthquake…

I looked all around me and towards the ground to see if any small hills were forming. The ground started to shake more and more around me as there were still no hills forming.

Where the hell is coming from? It feels like it could be right under...

Shit-!

By the time I knew exactly where the shaking was coming from, I almost dove off the cliff trying to get out of the way. It's a good thing that there was a pretty sturdy tree branch for me to hang onto as I nearly shitted myself.

Thanks, bullshit plot device!

As I pulled myself up, I saw a head and body beginning to dig itself out of the ground. The silhouette of a wyvern with devil horns already made me assume that it was a Diablos, but taking a closer look at it, the horns that made it obvious turned out to be just a single horn.

Looks like the same one from earlier trying to get some payback…

All the dust and smoke from the explosion earlier was slowly starting to settle, and after taking a closer look at the Diablos, it seemed to have some scorch marks and slashes on its wings and body.

Ok. Now I get it.

So it wasn't just me that its after then.

While I would've loved to take this monster head on, I would have to sneak around it and head towards the team to fight it since I didn't have a viable weapon to attack it with.

Damn, I really wish that the smoke didn't go away so soon. Would've made sneaking around much easier…

It didn't look like the Diablos had noticed me yet, but I really have to move fast if I want to keep it that way.

There wasn't a lot of cover around for me to sneak around with, I mean this is a desert, but with all the rocks and lingering smoke I think I might be able to pull something off…

I grabbed a handful of rocks and started to load them on my slinger, you know, the one thing that I completely forgot about even though it's attached to my right arm? Yeah, that thing.

I aimed my slinger to a wall near the Diablos and pulled the trigger of my slinger.

The slinger, unexpectedly, malfunctioned as the actual slinger itself stopped halfway and launched the rock right next to the Diablos' feet.

The Diablos' turned its head toward my direction and lowered its head on caution as it headed my direction.

Dammit!

I looked around to see if there was any cover, but since I was on flat-ish sand hill, I couldn't run anywhere, let alone hide myself.

 _Sigh_ Dammit! I'm really gonna have to make a stand right here with just a pistol huh?

Fuck it. If I'm gonna be heard by the Diablos, then I might as well make myself heard by everyone!

I pulled out my pistol and aimed where I thought were the Diablos' eyes were at, and when it got close enough I fired off all three shots.

The Diablos staggered back in pain before it roared loudly in the sky.

I used this opportunity while it was roaring to try and get as far away from it as it could.

I'm not sure how far away the rest of the guys are at, but I'm gonna have to buy some time regardless just for them to get here.

Now that the Diablos was done roaring in the sky, it turned around and started to run towards me at full speed.

I was only able to look back for half a second as I barely dodged out of the way from getting rammed.

It was a good thing that I was close to the wall for the Diablos to get its horn stuck in the wall, but even if it was stuck, it did use its tail to thrash around and cause the sand to spread everywhere.

Didn't matter to me though, I was still running away from it!

I tried to look around for some kind of sign of help or something to slow down the Diablos with, but nothing came to mind as I looked.

I fired off 3 shots into the air, just to let someone know I'm here.

The ground started to shake heavily as I continued to run, I looked back once again and saw the hill coming towards me fast.

I was just about to dive out the way of the Diablos popping its head out of the sand until I the sand under me rose up a lot faster than I expected.

Instead of diving its head out of the sand first and digging its body out, the Diablos dove out of the sand in full force as it tried to mow me down.

I, on the other hand, was sent sort of high into the sky when the Diablos dove out of the ground and hit the ground hard.

I guess it was safe to say that my head somehow got hit since I was starting to see double.

I got up slowly but struggled to do so as my head trauma made it hard to stand up straight.

Right now I was already seeing double, but I still pointed my revolver at the Diablos as it slowly made its way towards me.

I shot my gun 3 times slowly as the double vision didn't help my aim. By the sounds of it, I guess all 3 of my shots probably missed or hit a hard scale, either way, I was screwed.

I looked around me and saw nothing and no one that could help me out.

The Diablos stared me down as it saw me in a pretty bad shape.

"What? Like what you see?" I mocked it as I made a dry laugh.

Obviously, I didn't get a response from it since it was a Wyvern, but hey at least it sounded funny.

"Man, do I always get shitted on...thought I'd be used to it by now. But then again, I did wander off on my own..." I said to myself as my vision slowly got better, "Man is Vergil gonna be pissed…" I said as I tried to fire my gun at it again.

I guess my gun wasn't done reloading since it only fired off 2 shots instead of 3.

Both shots hit a hard part of the Diablos' skin and bounced off of its body. It roared loudly and began to charge at me head first.

I tried to stare off the Diablos as hard as I could and wait for the right time to dodge.

"Come on you fake Devil, show me what's so scary about you!" I shouted at it as I braced my body to take it on.

While I should've been paying attention to what was literally right in front of me, I noticed a pair of footsteps running to me behind me.

A faint flash of Blue and Yellow appeared right in front of me as the Diablos impacted something hard, stopping it dead in its track.

"What have I told you time and time again, Tsukiyo. Don't be so reckless to throw your life away…" Vergil said coldly.

"Tsukiyo….Are you okay?" Darkness said as she was struggling to push back the Diablos with the rental sword that I lost.

"Right in the nick of time, thanks guys." I said before Vergil pulled my collar harshly.

"Yeah, just in the nick of time. Especially when this could've been avoided if you hadn't gone on your own." Vergil said as if he was grinding his teeth.

Before he said anything else, Vergil glowed a faint blue as he disappeared back into my arm.

I'll punish you back on the airship. Right now, focus on killing this thing.

Not gonna help?

After what you pulled, figure it out yourself.

Yeah, this one's on me.

"Alright then...let's show you what a real devil looks like!" I said as I clenched my fist and summoned my spectral arm to punch the Diablos straight in the face.

The Wyvern got pushed back pretty far as roared at us in anger.

A couple of gunshots that weren't mine would soon be heard. I saw a couple of small rockets get sent from across the field and get latched onto the wing, they exploded soon after and got the attention of the Diablos.

"Sorry it took a bit long to get here, you guys-" I didn't have a chance to finish my sentence since Darkness interrupted me with a firm and sudden hug.

"I'm so glad you're safe…" Was all she said as she hugged me tight.

"You should be thanking Megumin, her explosion magic was basically a large target for us to go to." I said as I hugged her tightly back.

I broke away from the hug and wiped a couple of her tears away, "What matters right now, is that we're both okay. Come on, don't cry too much, we've still got a Monster to Hunt (Ba-dum, Tsh)"

Darkness wiped away the rest of her tears away on her sleeve, or her wrist at this point since there wasn't a lot of her armour left, "Right, we need to take care of that Dragon first. Let's go."

Me and Darkness started to make our way towards the Diablos as the shots continued.

Across the sand field from us was Alexi as he squatted on a boulder and started shooting down with his gun and with what looks like Kazuma right next to him supplying his shots.

"Wait, how are you going to fight? You don't have a weapon." Darkness said.

"I'll just have to go old-school!" I said as I pointed to my arm and turned my Devil Trigger on.

The Diablos was still preoccupied with Alexi as both me and Darkness snuck behind it.

The Diablos was just about done with tanking the shots as it started to dig in the sand and start to hide its body.

I didn't let it go into the ground as I used my Snatch ability to latch onto its tail and pull it out of the hole.

The wyvern began to struggle and move violently as it tried to break my grip on its tail. Alexi began to rapidly fire his shots onto the back of the Diablos head while Darkness was maining trying to swing at its underbody. She was whiffing it.

"That's the way Tsukiyo!" a voice shouted from above.

I looked up and saw Cowboy somehow soaring through the sky, not exactly flying but airborne, as he was soon above the wyvern's head and saw that about to do some kind of downwards strike with his polearm.

As soon as Cowboy landed the hit on the wyvern, he shot some kind of yellow-ish goo from his polearm and onto the wyvern head. From that, the watermelon sized beetle resting on Cowboys left arm got off and started to attack it.

"Alexi! Clusters!" Cowboy shouted as he brought out his bowie knife and started stabbing the nape.

It looked like Alexi shouted at Megumin for something before she scrambled to get the said object. He loaded something into his gun and pointed his gun up as if he was about to arc something.

But he'd need to wait for his shot a bit longer...

"Can't...hold…!" I grunted as my grip on the tail was getting really low up until the Diablos did a alligator spin and broke out of my hold, shaking off Cowboy and Darkness too.

With that, the Diablos dove right back into the hole it made earlier as the ground began to tremor from the wyvern's movement.

"Oh no you don't!" Cowboy said as he loaded something onto his slinger and shot a small ball towards us.

When the ball hit the ground, it made an ear piercing screech making me and Darkness cover our ears in pain, but also forcing the Diablos out of the ground as well.

The Diablos flailed around as part of its body was exposed and in confusion/shock.

Alexi got down from his rock and followed after the rest of us as we ran towards the wyvern.

With only the upper body exposed, I tensed up my demon arm and started to sprint at the wyvern at full force.

With it still flailing and not under control, I took this opportunity to get in close and go for an attack.

By the time I was close enough to the wyvern to make my spectral arm be effective, I stopped dead in my tracks and positioned my arm downwards for an uppercut.

With as much force as I could muster, I uppercutted the Diablos hard enough to not only drag to out of the hole it popped out of, but also enough to send it flying back a couple of feet.

But it looks like I put a little too much effort into my punch since my Devil Trigger wore off a couple seconds after.

"Alexi, now!" Cowboy shouted as he used his polearm to lift himself and fly towards the Diablos. Strangely enough, while he was in the air, he began to sprinkle some kind of orange dust all over the body of the Wyvern.

Once again, Alexi knelt down and began to arc his gun up as if it was a mortar, only this time he was actually able to fire off his shots without a moment to waste. Just like I guessed, or speculated I think, Alexi fired off his gun and the shell started to act just like a mortar.

The mortar shell flew high into the sky as it started to make the traditional mortar sound as gravity started to pull it back down.

The mortar shell made a direct impact on the stomach and blew up with no problems, but what surprised me was the fact that there were more mini-cluster bombs sprouting from the first explosion, and those mini-clusters made an even bigger explosion than before.

Alexi fired off another 2-3 of these cluster bombs as the rest of us watched the fireworks, while the Diablos was roaring in pain weakly.

"Mag empty!" Alexi shouted as he picked up his gun. So far there didn't seem to be anymore roaring or anything charging at us, so I think we did it.

As the dust and smoke from Alexi's bombs started to settle, we saw that the Diablos was still on its back and not moving.

"Finally…" I said as I sat down tiredly.

"Hold on, we're not done yet." Cowboy said as he took out his bowie knife.

"Please don't tell me it has a second form, I might actually quit if there is." I said tiredly.

"No, it's very rare for a Wyvern to have a second form, but there are different variants of them...but aside from that, there's no second form. We're never done with a hunt until we skin it." Cowboy said as he handed me another knife with a proud smile.

"What?" I said in disbelief, like seriously, I literally used up almost all of my energy and now I have to skin this thing?!

"You guys serious?" I asked.

"Of course we are! Aside from how we make our armour and weapons, hope you like eating Diablos meat!" Cowboy said happily as he pulled me up, "Come on, I'll show you where to cut!"

Holy shit these guys…

"I'm going to grab Megumin and Aqua, I'll be right back." Darkness said as she began to walk the opposite-

Wait a minute, where was Aqua during all of this?

God Dammit that no good trouble causing goddess of ours really needs to-

I started to feel some sudden movements from the ground as the Diablos that I thought was dead, was now moving and had enough strength to swing its tail at us.

Getting caught off guard, Cowboy got hit by its tail and was sent flying in another direction.

"Tsukiyo watch out!" Cowboy shouted as the Diablos started to charge straight at me in full force.

It didn't have to run too far at me since by the time it got close to me, it opened its mouth and tried to completely swallow me whole.

A little bit of emphasis on the words "Tried to."

"TSUKIYO!" Darkness shouted in horror, without hesitation Darkness rushed over to where the Diablos was.

The Diablos tried to swallow me whole, and if I was one second late to prying its mouth open from eating me, then yeah, I probably would've died...again..

"Let him go!" She shouted as she dashed towards me. She made an attempt to give it her all in a horizontal slash while she was aiming for the throat of the wyvern.

By the time she made the split second slash towards the throat, the blade snapped easily when she landed. There was no visible damage on the throat of the wyvern, but the Diablos did roar in immense pain.

Since Darkness always had trash accuracy when it came to using a sword, instead of slicing the Diablos' throat open, its tail got completely severed making the Diablos double over, giving me the chance to escape its mouth.

Alexi finally caught up and shouted, "DIE CYKA!" as he stuck his gun in the wyverns mouth and started to fire the gun almost endlessly.

The wyvern flailed violently as it suffered from the machine gun inside its mouth, but started to lessen and lessen very quickly.

By the time the Diablos stopped moving, for real this time, Alexi took out his gun from inside the mouth where the barrel of the gun steaming and glowing a fiery hot red.

"Now it is dead." Alexi said as he unloaded his gun.

"I don't think...I'm ever gonna get used to this…." I said as I panted from exhaustion.

"You...do you not fear death?" Alexi asked me as he took out a small flask.

"No, I do...Trust me. But...probably not as much….as everyone else…" I said.

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness said as she landed on me while I was still tired.

"Could you have done that a little bit more softer? I'm already tired enough from everything…" I said as Darkness tightly held onto me. Darkness didn't really say anything at all aside from hugging me tighter.

I held her head close and started to rub it, "Sorry for giving you another scare."

Even though I was completely screwed before she and Vergil came to save me…

After everything that happened today, thanks to Cowboy's guidance, we managed to get back to the airship in under an hour.

Aqua healed all of us, and then got scolded for using her magic to almost ruin the mission, well technically she did ruin the quest since we couldn't hunt the Barroth, but we did get a Diablos instead so that was considered a plus.

But it wasn't enough of a plus to get her out of cleaning duty and late dinner again…

"Now what the hell is this?" Slade said as sat down across from me and Darkness, "I send you guys out to take on a low tier monster and you go pick a fight with a mid tier and actually win. Ambition is a good thing, but take it easy you know?"

"Well, we probably would've gotten the Barroth if Aqua didn't use her magic…" I said as I was still a bit bitter from getting flushed into a cave.

"Course you would've, if you can take on a Diablos, you're already set to go on an Investigation with me later on." Slade said.

"An Investigation?" I asked.

"Compared to normal hunts, Investigations are more laid back but time consuming." Slade explained, "All we do is Investigate the general wildlife and see if anything is wrong, the thing is though is that we don't know what kind of monster we might face, if we even get monsters to fight at all.

Right now, we got an Investigation report from one of the fleets on some strange fires starting randomly near an Ancient Forest. Could be an Elder Dragon like from your town, or another kind of species we haven't found yet. Either way, since this fleet is the closest to the Forest, we're gonna take care of it."

"Don't you think we should rest for awhile? We've just come back from our first quest and it ended up almost badly." Darkness said, wow for once she wants to take it easy and not do anything rash, probably because of me though...

"Don't worry, we've got 3 days until we get to the Forest, I'll make sure to get you guys up to snuff by then." Slade said as he reassured us, "Besides, the whole team's going, so if things get bad, you'll have a full team of seasoned veteran's helping out."

"You guys should go get some rest. I'll be training you hard tomorrow." Slade said as he got up and left.

I sighed as I slouched over the table, "You know compared to doing this and taking on the Demon King's Generals, I'd probably want to take on Hans and Beldia, they make fighting look like nothing…"

Darkness didn't really say anything after that, she still had this sad look on her face while looking a bit concerned.

"You alright?" I asked her.

She faced me with a serious but concerned expression, "Can you promise me something?" she asked.

"Of course." I Replied back without hesitation.

"Next time we go out on a hunt, can you please be more careful? After everything that's happened today, I don't think my heart can take another scare like that. Tsukiyo, how can you still go on normally after everything that happened today? Especially after you almost died." She said, almost as if she was pleading me.

'You...do you not fear death?' Alexi's words rang in my head. I think he might be right.

After everythings that's happened, Dying, reincarnating into this world, putting myself through hell for no reason and trying to take on everything by myself, even I don't think my own mental state is ok or normal by any means, but...

"To be honest, even I still don't know how I can go on normally and act like nothing happened. Might be because I've just put myself in too many dangerous situations to the point of being desensitized to it, might be some other reasons…" I said sheepishly as I couldn't give myself an answer, but I did take Darkness' hand and held them tightly,

"But I do promise one thing though, from now on, I'll try not to do anything reckless. I'm sorry that I can't completely promise you my safety, but knowing me, I'll probably do something stupid and almost get myself killed. But what I can guarantee is my life. I can promise you that as long as I can fight, I'll not gonna die anytime soon."

Darkness sighed to herself, "I can't accept that answer but I don't think I'm going to get a better one…"

I held her hands gently and responded in the same tone, "Thanks and Sorry. But if I do break my promise, you can always get Aqua to revive me so you can kick my ass yourself."

Darkness managed to crack a small smile when I said that, "You know I won't do that."

"I wouldn't be offended you know? I probably need someone to kick my ass and put some sense in me!" I said as I began to smile myself.

Anyone but Vergil or Kosuke…

 _~Even if Tsukiyo took those words in a more light hearted tone, there was someone who didn't see it that way as he eavesdropped on both Tsukiyo and Darkness' conversation._

"Not gonna drop by?" Slade said to Turok as he leaned near the door.

"I'm gonna leave those two to themselves, even I can read the mood." Turok said as he was about to leave.

"Huh, isn't that a miracle…" Slade said as he lit up a cigar, "But doing this isn't gonna change the past, what happened to Kaz was-"

"Yeah, I know." Turok said grimly, "But I'm not gonna break my promise to him."

"Hold on, what's this about a promise?" Slade said as he looked at Turok with a strange look.

Turok didn't say anything when Slade questioned him.

"Slade, remember what the three of us used to talk about when we were just starting out?" Turok said as he looked into the doorway onto Tsukiyo.

Slade followed suit and had realization hit him right in the face, "You've gotta be shitting me…"

* * *

Next chapter: Tsukiyo dies from Corona from not wearing gloves when he skinned the Diablos.


	64. Gravel (MH 8)

Alright, another 3 days spent training and learning in the Airship.

Let's see what's changed…

Well first off, Me and Darkness did get new weapons, or stronger ones at least.

Remember that tail Darkness cut off in our first quest?

Yeah well, I guess that tail is her new shield. Nope, not even kidding. All that the blacksmith did was skin the tail, removed all kinds of flesh and meat from it, reinforced it from both the inside and out, and Bam! New Shield.

Her lance on the other hand...well...I guess I should now call it the "Gunlance". Yeah, it's almost exactly what someone would imagine a musket with a Bayonet fixed onto it would look like...but reversed…

Don't ask me how it works, even I don't know…

All I know is that she can shoot and stab at the same time, but just like a musket, it's pretty shit for long range use….and medium range….

As for me, I got myself a new sword and it was made from the horn of the Diablos, so it's probably a lot stronger than the iron one I had as my rental, which I did have to pay 50,000 eris for breaking it.

Equipment wise, I got to learn about a lot more things that could help in the future like making shock traps, tranquilizer bombs, life powders and other things that could help me from not dying.

Right now, I asked Slade for some extra lessons and as taking a break. Before I got back to training, I had to ask Vergil for a favour.

You want me to teach you how to summon my Spectral Swords?

Yeah, while I do have my Blue Rose to shoot and fire and normal enemies, I want to learn how to use that kind of magic for larger enemies.

Hmm…

My blue arm glowed a bright blue as Vergil turned on my Devil Trigger for me.

"It'll be easier for me to explain and show you this way, that way I don't suck up all your mana to prevent you from doing it." Vergil said

"You. Set up a training dummy." Vergil said as he faced Slade.

"Pardon?" Slade asked as he sounded unimpressed.

"I'm going to be tutoring Tsukiyo for a moment, I need a dummy set up." Vergil explained.

"Your mother ever tell you to say please and thank you?" Slade retorted back.

"No, she died before she could." Vergil replied back.

Slade didn't say anything else before he pushed a small button on the wall.

Ahead of me was hanging from the ceiling like a puppet was a sandbag dummy.

"The way I normally summon my swords is through visualization and feel. If I can imagine the shape and position of my sword along with the amount of energy I need to generate said swords flowing towards and away from my hands, they will appear." Vergil explained, "Allow me to demonstrate."

Vergil held up his right arm swiftly and focused on the dummy ahead of him, within a split second a horde of spectral swords surrounded the dummy from almost all angles. The moment he tensed up and closed his hand into a fist, all of the swords forcefully thrusted into the dummy making it a pin cushion of light blue and dark brown.

The spectral swords broke and disappeared a couple seconds later.

"You try." He told me, "Concentration is key."

I did what Vergil did and tried to imagine the flow of mana going towards my hand.

My human hand began to faintly glow a light blue as a small ball of energy appeared.

"Give this energy shape." Vergil said, "Think about the shape of a knife, the curve and the point at the end."

The small ball of energy was slowing slimming down as it started to look like a knife.

"Right now, all that raw energy is loosely forming a shape, condense it, fortify it, pressure it down to an exact shape." Vergil continued.

I struggled to condense the energy as it slowly started to fall apart.

"You're losing the energy! Focus!" Vergil said sternly.

I continued to try and condense the energy and make it look like a knife, but as I struggled to condense it, it finally got to a point where all the energy just fell apart and disappeared.

"You've got the basics down, but aside from that, it looks like it's still a bit early for you to learn it. Pressuring down the energy is a major aspect of the ability, it's what makes the attack unbreakable and quick to fire." Vergil said as he started to disappear.

We'll work on that on our own time, right now, focus on your combat training.

Got it. Thanks.

…

"Alright, well. I think we can leave it at that for today." Slade said as he sat down on his chair, "Magic and all that isn't my forte, but even I know it's a headache to use."

"Thanks Slade, maybe I might actually have a good hunt tomorrow with what you taught me." I said as I sheathed my bone-blade.

"Don't jinx it. We don't know what's out there in the forest, so we can only hope for the best." Slade said as he pulled out some glasses, "Now get out, I gotta prepare my munitions for tomorrow."

I stepped out of the training room and headed up to the deck. If I remember right, Darkness and Megumin are probably taking in the scenery.

As I made my way to the deck, I was a bit surprised to see both Megumin and Darkness talking to the same woman in yellow back in the town.

"Oh, Tsukiyo. How was your training?" Darkness asked as she and the two others were having tea.

"So far good, I learned how to make a couple more things that could help with me not dying so that's great." I replied back

"Oh! You're that waiter from back in town! I didn't know you were an adventurer!" The woman, Regina I think, said as she recognized me.

"Yeah, I'm mostly an adventurer/ novice demon hunter but I'm a Waiter when the Adventurer's Guild needs me too." I said, "I didn't think you were on this airship, didn't see you for the last couple of days…"

"Oh yeah, I sometimes hole up in my room and write out reports of pretty crazy/interesting things that happen in our Journey, like the thing with Nergigante! I never thought that it was pretty hellbent on trying to kill us to the point of following us, but hey the more you know, you know?" Regina said as she radiated positivity just from talking about monsters and her adventures.

"You guys are pretty interesting too you know, there aren't a lot of people who would go and challenge a mid-tier like that. Especially on their first hunt." she commented, "The last people who were ambitious enough were Turok's old team back when they started. Man they were pretty ballsy when they were young...and sort of good looking…"

"Turok had an old team?" Darkness asked.

"Yeah, a small team of 3 people back when they started hunting about 10 years ago." She said, "But an incident happened with one of the members where he got himself killed while trying to protect Turok…"

"...And it was from that one incident that made me realise how dangerous this job is." Turok said from behind me as he finished her sentence.

"Oh hey, you're back. How was the forest?" Regina asked happily.

"Lot's of fires, but no traces of what caused it. Might need to search deeper in the forest." Turok said as he unslung his bow and sat at a nearby table.

"Well, at least you'll have 5 extra hands tomorrow." I said, "Chances are, we might find it."

"Probably, but there's no telling what we might find. Should plan out what we can while we're still here." Turok said as he pulled out a wrinkled paper and spreaded it out."

On the map it basically showed a pretty big forest with a lot of red X's, blue question marks, and a green border.

"Red X's are the spots where the fire happened, blue marks are possible leads, and anything green is untouched area. So far the green area has stayed the same over the past couple days, but the frequency of the fire is kept pretty closely. So our target isn't moving around too much." Turok said as he explained all this.

"So far, the only places we explored were the outer right side near the mountains, lower right with the cliffs, and the close center with the actual forest. All that's left to check is the lower left with the hills covered in gravel and the upper left where the Grand Tree is."

"What's the Grand Tree?" Megumin asked.

"The Grand Tree is one of the oldest trees in that forest ranging from 100-150 feet in diameter, it's said that the oldest wyverians that are sentient used to live there in the beginning of their existence." Regina chimed in.

"Right now we have two groups going tomorrow, My group with your team going to the Gravel Hills, and the secondary group going to check out the Grand Tree. I expect everyone to be at their very best if we find the cause of all these fires." Turok said, "...and Regina?"

"Yeah?" She said innocently.

"Please don't stray too far from the group. Last time that happened, you rode a Deviljho and nearly got flattened." Turok said clearly to her.

"I'll be fine! This time, Ms. Porter made me one of her mantles (Cloaks) to hide my presence from the Monster if things get bad." Regina said as she pulled put a small cloak covered in leaves.

I'm having the strangest feeling right now, it's as if Regina reminds me of someone annoying...

"Besides, as your Handler and Partner, I gotta be there to write things down. Who knows what might happen!" Regina said trying to persuade Turok.

"You're exactly right, who knows what might happen." Turok said sounding annoyed, "That's why you might need to hang back. I know how important the reports are to you and just how important they are to the entire fleet-"

"If you know all these, then you know that I'm gonna come along." Regina said back.

"You guys really sound like an old couple, get married already!" A random Explorer said he and his friend walked by.

Regina grew a bright pink as she heard that, Turok stayed stone faced though.

"A-anyways, I'm coming with you no matter what you say! It's a Handlers Job to record any and all strange incidents in our travels, and that's that!" Regina said, determined to go.

"Fine. Just don[t get yourself killed." Turok said as he began to leave, "You guys better get some good rest and get your gear in check, we'll be doing our Investigation all day tomorrow. Won't be back until we find our culprit or until it gets to midnight."

Turok left with those words as Regina took a deep breath of relief.

"He's always so stubborn to work with…" She said as she laid back in her chair, "But he does make a good point, you guys need to get your stuff ready for tomorrow. Most of the Investigations we've taken usually lasted until late evening or night time. It doesn't hurt to get a little rest in."

"You really are close to him aren't you?" Megumin asked.

Regina blushed a bit when she heard her, "I mean...I guess we're sort of close so…"

"How long have you been his Partner?" Darkness asked.

"W-well...I guess since the 5th fleet started, around 8 years ago. B-but it's nothing Romantic, you know! All I'm doing is setting him up with Quests, writing down anything that happens, and sometimes cooking for him when we stake out for more than 2 days."

"But I guess in terms of personality, we don't really match at all so…" Regina said getting a bit depressed, "I'm pretty bubbly and easily excited when we find new and cool monsters, but I've heard people say that I get pretty annoying after a while…I guess I don't blame them though…"

"Well the most I can really say is not to let something as little as that get in your way. I mean when you compare me and Darkness, you can really tell that us being matched up seems a bit impossible especially when you consider her masochism from getting hit." I said trying to cheer her up.

"Y-you...didn't have to tell her like that!" Darkness said as she blushed a bit from embarrassment, "B-but it is true, with my standing as a Crusader, a Knight who serves the Goddess Eris, being in a relationship with a half-demon like Tsukiyo seemed pretty impossible and even Taboo to most, but I glad that that didn't stop him."

"Exactly." I said confirming Darkness' statement because it's not like a bounty for 10 million Eris on me would've made a difference if I did stop….

"I guess you're right, thanks." Regina said as she got out of her rut.

"Now all we have to hope for is Megumin…" I said jokingly before hearing her sigh.

"You joke about that, but I'm honestly find it hard to hope…" Megumin said monotonically.

"Don't worry Megumin, even if you fail, you still have about 9 more years before you can give up! At least that's what my Mom said…" Regina said trying to be positive.

"I don't think I can keep it up for 9 years…" Megumin said as she rested her head on the table.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" Kazuma said as he walked up to us.

"That's a secret!" Regina said as she took this as her que to leave, "I gotta pack my gear for tomorrow, I'll see you guys at lunch."

After Regina left, it was now Darkness' time to leave, "Tsukiyo I might need some help trying to use my new Lance, would you mind helping me?" Darkness said as she didn't give me a chance to reply, so she just took my hand and made me walk the other direction.

"What the-, What's with them?" I could faintly hear Kazuma ask.

Oh wouldn't you like to know...

\- - Next Day- -

For an Investigation, I guess this is sort of what I expected and not expected at the same time…

Why, you ask?

Well let me tell you what I'm seeing right now;

Small rocks, big rocks, grey rocks, black rocks, white rocks, and other rocks.

That's literally all I see on the ground and around us, just rocks or gravel if you want to be technical...

For the last 3 hours, I've been searching these gravel hills and ground trying to find some kind of clue, literally anything that looks out of place, to see what's causing these fires.

Everyone's split up all around this mountain trying to find something.

Turok and Slade are checking nearby caves, Cowboy and Alexi are checking the edge of the gravel area, Aqua and Kazuma are checking a nearby river (at least I think they're checking…), Megumin and Darkness are checking the nearby landscapes, Regina stayed back at the camp just in case, and I get the entire slanted mountain to myself.

As I was about to take a break, a white flare shot in the sky close to the edge of the nearby Forest. It was a signal to regroup and take a break from all the searching.

Right as I was about to sit down…

It took about 40 minutes to get back to the side of the forest where most of us were here, we were only missing Turok, Slade, and Aqua.

"So, I'm going to take a hint and say that no one found anything since we didn't see any red flare…" Cowboy said as he made a sigh of exhaustion, "Let's take a small break right here. I think we have some food in the campsite nearby.

Everyone here took the opportunity to take off their weapons and cut loose for awhile.

"Ugh, that was a waste of time…Aqua didn't even help me search…" Kazuma complained as he took a seat on a nearby tree.

I took a seat on a nearby tree stump where Darkness soon joined me.

"So, now was the view?" I asked trying to make some small talk.

"It was breathtaking. I love seeing new sights when exploring the world. Wish you would've joined us." Darkness said.

"Sounds like you had a good time, at least it was better than my view." I said as I stretched my arms, "Rocks, rocks, and more rocks beyond what the eye can see…"

"Doesn't sound too different from what we saw." Slade said as he and Turok walked up behind me, "Only difference was that it was dark as shit."

Slade set down his rifle, yes a somewhat normal looking rifle that's somewhat fused with a crossbow, and went inside the slightly big tent.

"Hey! What're you-! Hey!" Regina shouted as she chased after Aqua who had a piece of bread in her mouth.

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

"I can't help it! I've been starving for the last hour, please let me have this!" She complained.

"You didn't do shit! You don't deserve that bread!" Kazuma shouted as he tripped her.

"Ow! You bully! Now the bread's gone bad!" She complained more.

"Just like your brain." I commented.

"What was that!?" Aqua shouted angrily at me.

"He's not wrong you know…" Kazuma said.

Aqua looked like she was about to cry as she stormed off into the forest.

"...and she ran off, good job Kazuma." Megumin said.

"Thank you, I meant every word." Kazuma said proudly.

"I was being sarcastic." Megumin said annoyed at him.

"I wasn't!" Kazuma said, still proud.

Megumin stayed annoyed at Kazuma as he didn't get up to drag her back.

"You're gonna go after her?" Slade asked as he popped his head out of the tent.

"I will if we're going back to search, but for now I'll stay here with my girlfriend." I told him.

Darkness blushed a light pink with a light smile as she heard that.

But sadly, our moment was ruined yet again by a screeching monkey.

"AHHH! KAZUMA!" Aqua shouted bloody murder as she ran from the forest and dove to where Kazuma was, "Kazuma, Tsukiyo save me!"

"Ugh! What is it now!? You call yourself a Goddess and yet you run from everything here!" Kazuma said as he stood up and tried to shake Aqua off his boot.

 _Demon. Get ready, it's closing in fast!_

"Darkness, get back." I said seriously as I stood up and unsheathed my new sword.

"What? Why?" Darkness asked.

"Everyone get back from the forest! Somethings coming!" I said loudly. Regina, Megumin, and Kazuma were startled from me and got away from where Aqua ran out of. Cowboy, Alexi, and Turok got their weapons out and got ready from what was about to pop out. Even Slade popped his head out of the tent to see what was going on.

It was silent for a while, but then I started to hear some footsteps, and then...hold on, is that….revving?

In a flash of blue, something was flying towards me and was aiming for my heart.

I barely managed to catch the tip of its lance with my Demon arm as it pushed it me back a good 10-12 ft back.

"Oh you gotta be shitting me!" I said as I tightly gripped the lance and threw it and the Angelo behind me towards the gravel.

Yeah, that armour and lance was immediately recognizable. Silver and platinum knights armour with a makeshift gold halo and artificial wings to make it fly. Bianco Angelo, Demonic control in an Angel's armour...

"Tsukiyo!" Darkness shouted.

"Hey! Blue on Blue, what the hell are you doing?!" Cowboy shouted.

"Cowboy, this isn't a person! It's a demon!" I shouted back.

"What?!" Turok said, "Cowboy behind us!"

I looked behind us and saw 3 more Bianco's show up.

"These guys only fight with their Lance and Shields! Watch out for their lances, they can rush in and close the distance fast!" I shouted to them.

"Hah!? Demons?! Oh now you messed up now! Watch me Kazuma! I don't need your help this time! 'Turn Undead!'" Aqua shouted cockily as she used her spell on the armoured Demons.

The Demons stayed in place and were unfazed by the attack.

"H-huh?" Aqua said as cold sweat ran down, "' T-turn Undead!' "

Still no effect.

" 'Sacred Turn Undead!' " Aqua shouted, but the Angelo's were still in-tact, "K-k-k-k-k-kazuma It's not work-!"

One of the Angelo's tried rushing towards Aqua spear first and made a pretty big hole in the tree when Kazuma dragged her down.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed, you Useless goddess?!" Kazuma shouted as he grabbed her wrist and started running, "Megumin, let's get out of here!"

"Regina! Follow after them!" Turok shouted as he shot 3 arrows to the Angelos' head.

"Tsukiyo Be Caref-!" Darkness was cut off as blocked a shield bash from an incoming Angelo.

"Eyes up! Focus!" Alexi said as he started shooting.

"Trust your boyfriend Darkness! He can handle himself!" Cowboy shouted.

He's right, you know. This fight is perfectly in my control. Especially with this arm, it's already an unfair fight for them.

As the Angelo I threw slowly got up, I rushed in to close the distance before it had the chance to recover.

When I got close enough to the Angelo, it swung its Lance sideways and followed up with a jab at me. I was able to duck under the swing and barely miss getting jabbed before I went for a downwards slash.

The Angelo was able to revert half of its wings to form half of its shield to block my attack and shield bash me to get some breathing room.

It once again went for a side slash and while I was able to dodge them, I wasn't able to prevent the shield from fully forming.

The Bianco was now in defensive mode and shuffled up to me with its shield raised. While It shuffled towards me, I was backing up and moving from side to side hoping to get the drop on it.

Feeling a bit sick and tired of backing up, I used Snatch to grab hold of the shield and tried to get it away from it, but failed as the Angelo managed to knock off my grip on the shield and use its Rev function to go for a powered up jab.

I dodged this one perfectly, and managed to get a few lucky hits in with my sword before it shoved me off with its shield.

The Angelo stepped back a couple feet and went to its flight mode and hovered a couple feet off the ground. Instead of conservatively using its Rev functions for a clean shot at me, it began to use its Rev continuously rushing at me while I took out the Blue Rose and took shots at it.

Yeah, I know. Shooting at a suit of armour really doesn't make any sense, but at least I'm doing something…

Just as the Angelo swept by me again with its Flying Lance Rush, my arm (or at least Vergil) seemed to have grabbed onto the leg of the Angelo, giving me the perfect opportunity to go for an overhead slam down into the ground.

While the Angelo was on the ground, I jumped on top of it and used my drain ability to get myself a level 2 charge. Unlike last time, instead of blowing my shot, I decided to keep it and not use it unless I need it later. Instead, I grabbed my bone sword and aimed straight for its core in the middle.

The Angelo seemed to have struggled while the blade was through it but, it quickly died down and began to dissolve.

As I got up, I looked behind me and checked on the others. Turok the others seemed to have taken down one of them and are fighting the other, while Darkness was struggling to take hers down.

So far, the Angelo's been shield bashing her and blocking her strikes, while she did the same.

Part of me wondered if this was a definition of Immovable object meets an unstoppable force, but I didn't think about it too hard since I ran up to her to back her up.

Luckily for us, the Shields health has already been shaved down pretty low since the blue on the shield had already gone to a dull red.

I grabbed Darkness' hand with the Lance and helped her out, "Tsukiyo!" She said out of surprise.

"Come on, it's shield is about to break, we gotta go all in!" I said as I tightened my grip on the lance and its trigger, "Ready?"

She had this determined and serious look on her face when she replied, "Yeah, let's do this!"

I helped Darkness stab the Angelo's shield with a lot more force and started to push it back. The Angelo took a more defensive stance as to withstood the blows being dealt.

In a desperate attempt to stop it being pushed back, it used its Lance to try and stab Darkness in her face. I was only able to stop the lance mid way with my Demon arm as it grazed her right cheek.

With one more powerful thrust with the lance, we were able to break through its shield and stab it through its core.

The Angelo struggled and tried to take the lance out of itself, but we pushed the Lance hard enough to sweep it off its feet and pin it to a tree behind it.

"Brace yourself!" Darkness shouted.

She tightly held onto the lance as she pulled the trigger on the lance and fired off 3 shells, point blank, onto the Angelo.

The Angelo was starting to dissolve as it tried to reach for us as its top half was almost completely non-existent, but crumbled a couple seconds later.

Turok and the others were just about done with the last Angelo as Slade took out a handmade, bit well made double barrel and blew the back of the Angelo's head off.

"Well then, that was certainly...an experience…" Darkness said while panting from exhaustion.

While Everyone was panting and taking the time to get a breath in, I'm still looking around with my sword ready just in case.

"Are you expecting more?" Slade asked.

"Nope. Just weird seeing a full team of these guys rushing in without their leader. But, I'm glad he's not here, that would've been an entirely different fight…" I said as I took my hand off my sword but didn't relax.

"Hey Turok." I said, "You said that there were random fires happening in the forest without any trace right? What are the chances of these fires being caused by a demon?"

"Before today, I'd be pretty skeptical. But that's something completely possible after these guys. You know any demons that cause any fries without a trace?" He asked.

"I know about Hellbats and Hellhounds, but they hang around their fires after making them. Don't know if this is a new one or not, gonna need to see it for myself to make sure." I replied back.

"Guys!" A voice shouted from a distance.

As we looked to the side of us, we saw Regina, Kazuma, and Megumin running toward us.

"Glad you guys are safe. We've already taken care of-" Cowboy was about to explain before getting cut off.

"We...We got an emergency here!" Regina said as she stopped in front of them and handed them 2 pieces of paper..

Turok read what was on the first page, "It's the Grand Tree team! They've found the fire source but need back-up badly…" Turok turned to the second page and had his eyes widen in bewilderment, "What the hell?"

"This look familiar?" He asked as he gave me the paper with a sketch of the monster they saw.

"Oh no…" I said as I saw the monster.

* * *

Ok, I actually have an excuse this time, procrastination didn't get me this time!

I just didn't have any Internet in the house from the 15th of Jan up until last Friday, the 21st.

Man does living like a caveman really suck.

All jokes aside, I really got screwed over not only for the stories, but because I needed it for School stuff.

Other than that, not really much to say aside from DANTE GETTING SCREWED OVER BY BYLETH BY NOT BEING IN SMASH ULTIMATE. YES IM STILL BITTER ABOUT THAT BECAUSE ITS ANOTHER FUCKING FIRE EMBLEM CHARACTER.

Note* I do not play Smash Ultimate, but Byleth was a pretty 'meh' character to pick. Still rooting for my boy Sora.

 **Questions:**

 _JourneytotheEnd and FruitspunchSamurai-987:_

 _Will I add more Elder Dragons or Velkhana from the Iceborne Expansion._

Probably not because 1) I haven't even gotten close to endgame, 2) I plan on ending the MH arc pretty soon, so it might be in another 3-4 chapters.

 _Will you make it so you have Monster Crafted weapons?_

Already done. Tsukiyo's Sword, Darkness' Gunlance/Shield, Food.

 _Saru:_

 _Is this going to be different from the Events of DMC5?_

Yes and No. Let's just leave it at that before I accidentally share spoilers.

 **Reviews/Responses:**

-DxHologram:

It has been a while, and it has been another while again.

Sorry about that!

-Gen2324:

"It's fine to spend your Holidays having fun!"

 _Sweats in actual procrastination_

-Kensei-1085 and Shiroyasha Rises

V does have a completely different motive this time around. Since he can generate his own magic and not die off easily, he can technically exist on his own _as long as he has his book._

-The Loud Person:

THANKS LOUD PERSON, I DIDN'T THINK THIS KIND OF STORY WOULD WORK OUT THE WAY IT WOULD, BUT HEY I GUESS I WAS WRONG. I hope that was loud enough…

-DoortoLight47: Yeah, I can see that, it's just a bit harder to know whether or not the story says Kazuma or OCxDarkness since most stories, like mine, doesn't say that.

-DredgenVayn: Thanks.

-IcyStream: You can quote me on that, you're allowed to.

-Shinta: I'll be honest with you chief, I gave up watching Gintama after ep 100, there's just too many to watch.

Saru: Can you tell I'm a severe V fan/Main? Also I did have to reread most of the Visions of V manga to set up the scenarios.

Slackboy101: Found the Bandit main!

Guest that didn't leave a name so I'll call him Richard: I don't think he's lashing out because of the power, I think I wrote the chapter that way because of the consistent frost wolves coming in and him killing things that looked humanoid. I don't know, I can't remember why I wrote this down 2 years ago.

Another Guest that didn't leave his name, or is Richard: Yeah, I should really do that at this point. If you're reading this, then this story has officially been moved from a standard story into a Crossover story. Time for real DMC fans to call my story shit.

3rd guest that didn't leave a name, or is either Richard or Guest 2: lmao kek.

Kerry: Thanks, it really sucked for me to fight these kinds of monsters the first time only to get carted 3 times in a row.

Xx-NoobSlayer69-xX (This is his actual title, I'm not even kidding): Yeah, it was probably like that in the beginning since I didn't know what to write, I'm not sure if that still applies to this day, but if it does, then...I dunno? I tried I guess. The hyperventilating dying thing is just something I added for fear factor, I mean people would freak the fuck out (or break down) if they've been told they've died or remember themselves dying so….yeah…

*Haha Remember when I hoped for a consistent upload schedule? Haha, is Funny joke, Yes?*

Edit: So my laptop finally kicked the bucket...F's in chat for my Lenovo Yogabook that I got at Wal-Mart for $280. Gonna see if I can get myself another Laptop.


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